“Early Adulthood (Ages 20-35):  Enterprise –  It takes enterprise for young adults to accomplish their many responsibilities, including finding a home and mate, establishing a family or circle of friends, and/or getting a good job.

Midlife (Ages 35-50):  Contemplation – After many years in young adulthood of following society’s scripts for creating a life, people in midlife often take a break from worldly responsibilities to reflect upon the deeper meaning of their lives, the better to forge ahead with new understanding.”

Source: http://www.institute4learning.com/resources/articles/the-12-stages-of-life/

 

Check out Wikipedia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xennials

In 2014, I was 31 at the time, I met with my first coach. She taught me about ‘the wheel of life’. It was so unlike anything I ever learned in school, it fascinated me instantly. So recently I looked it up and it’s a real thing.

“A researcher observed a young butterfly’s exertion and struggle to get out of its cocoon. He thought he would help and used a scalpel to make a small slit in the cocoon, thus easing the butterfly’s task. Soon, however, he discovered the butterfly could not fly; its wings had not been strengthened through the effort of escape. The butterfly died because it was not strong enough to become airborne.

In a similar manner the struggle and suffering we encounter in life can be strengthening. If it is avoided then our lives may lack the strength and resolve needed to seek and engage transformation. Psychological and spiritual growth is always difficult. It is like the birth process in which something new comes into existence. A new level of maturity is brought into being. Birth involves struggle and with struggle comes not only suffering but strength.

Let’s look at one frequently occurring example of the “Wheel of Life.” It is a wheel surrounded by four different images of one person. At the top of the wheel is a well-dressed person, smiling and content. This person is in the position of happiness and success. As the wheel turns clockwise on its axis, the next image is of the same person appearing distressed as he falls head long into the abyss of change and loss. Fortune has turned, and the wheel continues to move. At the bottom of the wheel the person is naked and is in suffering as he lives through the experience of loss. This is the position of despair and loss of hope. Once again the wheel turns and the person rises in hopeful expectation. The person is again clothed and has a look of anticipation as he moves towards the top of the wheel.

These four images represent the phases of life which are in continual movement. These phases can be distinguished from the stages of life. Life stages are broad divisions such as infancy, childhood, adolescence, adult, midlife, and old age. The four phases of the wheel occur within these stages in an on going cyclical manner. As individuals living in the world, we are always at one of the life four positions: Happy, Loss (Descending), Suffering, or Hope (Ascending). Because the wheel is continually turning, we can assess our present position and look ahead to where we will be next. If we are presently happy, it will not last. If we are falling, it may get worse. When we are suffering, we may get through it to rise again in hope. Happiness will be regained, but the wheel also continues to turn. The cycle is repeated, and such is life.”

Source: http://lessons4living.com/wheel_of_life2.htm

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

– Steve Jobs

A friend once told me “I think now it’s time for you to find your own Leonardo”. She was teasing me. She knew I had been a life time Leonardo fan, Leonardo DiCaprio that is. The greatest actor of our time, every girl’s dream, at least that’s what I thought. I remember the first time I saw him on the big screen, I was fourteen years old and Romeo + Juliet had just come out. And then there was Titanic and the phenomenon it was. Leonardo starred as Jack, chasing his Rose on board of this unsinkable ship, that sank on it’s first voyage across the Atlantic. “I’ll never let go Jack, I’ll never let go”.

Also read [Bamboo Plant]

Also read [The Monkeys up in the Trees]

Sometimes in life you wipeout through no fault of your own, this too is life, the Surf of Life. Life is no linear upward line, or a nice round circle. Life is like a set of waves, sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down:

• Accept that sometimes the waves just wash over you
• Remember that not every wave is for you
• Know that there’s no surfing without waves

 

‘God can dream a bigger dream, for me, for you, than you could ever dream for yourself. When you’ve done as much and worked as hard and strived, and tried, and given, and plead, and bargained, and hoped. Surrender. When you have done all that you can do and there is nothing left for you to do, give it up. Give it up to that thing that is greater than yourself and let it then become part of the flow … You can dream this much, but God has a bigger dream.’

– Oprah Winfrey

“In the end, I’ve come to believe in something I call the ‘physics of the quest’, a force in nature governed by the laws of gravity. The rules of quest physics goes something like this: If you’re brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting and set out on a truth seeking journey either internally or externally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared most of all to face and forgive some of the most difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you”

– Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love – 2010