The chapters of your life

Your hero's journey

Think of your life as a novel (yes, you get to chose the actor who will play you in the film version!). Then divide it up into chapters that correspond to the big moving parts. Or think of your life as a calendar year, and divide it up into seasons.

There are many models for dividing up our human lives into sections, created by developmental psychologists and novelists and biologists and advice columnists and astrologers and other minds. Here is my preferred framework for the chapters/seasons of our lives:

• CHILDHOOD: birth to onset of puberty

• ADOLESCENCE: onset of puberty to mid-20's

• EARLY ADULTHOOD: mid-20's to later-30's

• MIDDLE ADULTHOOD: early 40's to later 50's

• LATER ADULTHOOD: early 60's to death

You will notice, perhaps with some relief, that I have banished the terms Middle Age and Old Age. These words have acquired such negative meaning that they are toxic to our sense of self/worth when applied to our own lives. Adults are just ADULTS … until they’re not.

Building a SELF

Adolescence as defined above extends beyond the legalistic ages of 18 and 21 when certain rights and responsibilities (voting, drinking alcohol, military and political service, ability to sign contracts and make medical decisions etc.) are conferred by society and Adulthood is thought to begin. That’s because the major task of Adolescence (beyond the purely biological/sexual) is identity formation, the development of a solid stable differentiated sense of self. And that takes a LOT of living time and experience.

Most people pursue a period of intensive exploration of the worlds of school/work and relationships and their own interests and attitudes and values during their later teens and through their 20's. Identities and relationships and jobs and interests are tried on for size and discarded with abandon as the process of self-discovery accelerates and deepens.

This is why adolescents and young adults are often described unkindly as self-absorbed when a better word would be self-constructing. While there is considerable individual variation in exactly when this solid sense of self is achieved, for most people it seems to crystallize in the mid- to later 20's, so that is where the chapter of Adolescence comes to a close.

Building a LIFE

You become mature when you become the authority of your own life. — Joseph Campbell

The life- and self-building and refinement process continues on through the chapter of Early Adulthood. Career identity and friendships solidify. Family formation (partnering, child-rearing) assumes primacy for many but not all. The main task of early adulthood is building a “life structure” whose component parts reflect and align with the crystallized identity formed during the adolescent period. Building and tweaking the life structure feeds back into and furthers the identity formation process itself. In most (though not all) cases, the hallmark of Early Adulthood is STABILIZATION of the self and life structures with a decelerating rate of change.

Whatever selves and lives we create during our Adolescence and Early Adulthood, they will “work” until they don’t. Over time, we change and the world changes and the alignment between the two shifts.

Not everyone suffers the stereotypical mid-life crisis you hear about. In fact, most people don’t make a big career change or get divorced or buy a little red sports car during the Middle Adulthood years of the 40's and 50's. That’s a myth created by the shrinks and Hollywood.

But short of such dramatic earthquakes of change, many people do feel some degree of un-ease or stagnation or frustration during these middle years between their Early and Later Adulthoods. For some, this disquiet is mild enough to be largely ignored. For others, some self/life analysis and perhaps some tweaks and adjustments are called for. For others, something like the full-fledged crisis (danger + opportunity) presents itself and must be managed (ideally not alone) for better or worse.

Nothing lasts forever

Given the wonders of public health and scientific progress (clean water, vaccines etc.) and some downward trends in large-scale human violence (aka “war”), many of us can expect to live for up to 80 years. If we divide that lifespan into four 20-year chunks, it means that entering the Later Adulthood period in the 60's puts us in the final quarter of our life’s term.

During this period, we will begin to notice that some of our age peers are becoming sick or frail and even dying. We will observe this pattern accelerate even as we notice signs of aging in ourselves. This data runs the risk of breaking through one of our most important illusions and defense mechanisms: the belief in immortality and the denial of death.

Children are terrified by the notion of death, and tend to either ignore it or be overwhelmed by it. Most adolescents and adults will intellectually admit and understand that they will not live forever, but they don’t really BELIEVE it deep down. And this is all well and good. People who have been deprived of a sense of safety now and hope for many good tomorrows suffer deeply.

Erik Erikson developed one of the most meaningful models of life stages where each chapter contains both an opportunity to grow/thrive and a danger of failure. Tasks of Childhood include developing the capacity to trust others and exert self-control/autonomy. The tasks of Adolescence include building a capacity for caring and intimacy and a cohesive sense of self which becomes the foundations for ongoing growth throughout Adulthood.

As a growing awareness of our own fragility and mortality is triggered by both the numbers (4th/last quarter) and the evidence of our peers’ and our own declining vitality and health, we confront the challenge of maintaining our own well-being without a belief in an endless supply of tomorrows. Erikson and other writers have noticed that people who manage to avoid falling into despair during their Later Adulthood years do several things in common:

• They shift some of their focus from themselves to helping others (including the younger generations) and derive satisfaction and meaning from doing so (teaching, mentoring, grand-parenting, charity work etc.)

• They shift some of their focus from their bodies which are declining to their self/spirit which continues on until (and some believe after) death

• They shift some of their focus from the future which is shrinking to past positive memories and accomplishments (reminiscence) and present-day experiences (mindfulness)

Live long … and prosper!

To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. — Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

There are no bad times of life to be alive. Each of the five chapters of life has its challenges and struggles and its opportunities and satisfactions. Each gives us an opportunity to develop a clearer and deeper sense of who we are and our place in the world, and a greater capacity to understand and connect with others. As we do so, we increase our chances of achieving the good life we all want throughout all the years we are given.

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