How Understanding the Typical Life Arc can Give you Perspective

Most people's lives are, there's a life arc, and most people's lives transpire in like ways that you could see over and over again. You know, so I break it down. It seems to me like there are three big phases in life.

The first phase is you're dependent on others, and you're learning, usually from your parents. Then you go out on your own. Others become dependent on you, and you're working, you're trying to be successful. Almost every year, practically, not every year but in neighborhoods of years, you're this age, you get married at this age, or you get to your life partner and be at that age. They said you have kids when you have kids.

Your parents are now entering their third phase. There are those things that we all know. So I put in that life arc, you know, a checklist. What happens in the first, you know, when do you first have a romance? When do you first…? You could see the list, and there's a checklist.

When you go through the checklist, you can check off how many of the things happen to you, wherever, and you can see right where you are. Because by looking at that checklist, you could also see what's coming next. You could see, by and large, not only what's coming next to you, but if you look at it over, let's say, what are the next things I can expect over the next 10 years as likely?

Then you could do that for your loved ones. What does that mean for your parents? Where will they be over the next 10 years? What about your children? And what about your friends? And what are these phases in your life like? How should you approach that?

So by having them in that perspective, you can step back, and you can put that in perspective. You can learn and think about, okay, there's the next 10 years.