Progress is a lot slower and a lot less photogenic than anyone admits. You are further along than last year and it does not feel like it, because you have been present for every single inch and the whole thing happened at a pace you could not perceive.
The sloths on this one have the right idea, unhurried and not remotely concerned about arrival times. There is a real difference between being slow and being stuck, and we are terrible at telling them apart from the inside. Stuck means nothing changes. Slow means everything changes, gradually, in a way that only shows up when you compare yourself to a version of you from far enough back to be unrecognizable.
Most of the people you envy are simply further into the same slow process. They did not skip anything. They just started earlier, or got lucky with the timing, and they are quietly as unsure about the next bit as you are about this one.
Still going. That is the entire requirement, and you are meeting it.
