Gf and I are at different stages in life

TL;DR: I’m feeling that I’m time slip away waiting on my gf but I love her dearly and am feeling stuck as I wouldn’t even want to experience most things without her.

My gf (F23) and I (M24) have been dating for 6 years now. We met in high school through friends and were best friends instantly. After about a year of friendship we started dating and it has been amazing. I truly feel that she is the love of my life and I am so happy to have someone like her that makes me laugh everyday. We rarely argue about anything at all, and if we do we always find common ground, never let things linger or try to antagonize each other.

I finished my undergrad back in Dec 2024 and she finished hers in May 2025, since then we are both back home. After about 6 months of living at my parents again I decided it was best to move out and her mom (who I love as if she were my own) offered for me to move in with them. I work a well-paying remote job, and my gf and I get to spend as much or as little time with each other as we want—we are both very aware that we should value our time as individuals as much as we value our time together.

Lately, I have been getting the feeling that I am wasting my youth. Not in partying, drinking, sleeping around, or anything like that—never been of interest to me. More that I have aspirations and goals I want to achieve and I am ready to pursue them. I want to travel the world, buy my first home, pursue my dream job, etc. Most importantly though I want to have those experiences with her and she just isn’t ready.

She wants to but she is struggling to find employment while simultaneously applying for Masters programs that she needs to break into her chosen career. As I said before I love her more than anything and I want so badly to experience life with her, my best friend, but I feel that if I wait to do all the things I want to achieve in life I will regret it later and possibly grow to resent her.

P.S. my first ever reddit post, so don’t flame me. Just really venting and seeking advice from people that may have experienced similar situations in life and how they handled them without losing their partner