Time Cycles (Seasons in a Man’s Life – Daniel Levinson)
There are certain natural time cycles that everyone goes through. We can choose to work with these time cycles or be out of synch with them. Most of us normally work with these cycles of time in an instinctive automatic fashion.
The overview below is a summary from the very excellent book by Daniel Levinson, Season’s in a Man’s Life. For the purposes of managing time, I will draw a very sharp distinction between the use of willpower and goal setting at different times in our lives.
From early childhood up to age 22, the use of willpower in running one’s life and in goal setting is crucial. In fact those who fail to do so, pay the price by not having developed these faculties later on in life. This is when the 10,000 hour rule comes into play.
Increasingly however, willpower must be used more and more sparingly because it ends up exhausting your cognitive, conative and affective aspects of your psyche.
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2) the Transitional Period - This is the end of a person's stage and the beginning of a new one. Life during these transitions can be either rocky or smooth, but the quality and significance of one’s life commitments often change between the beginning and end of a period. There are 6 stages of adulthood in Levinson's theory titled "Seasons of a Man's Life"
1) Early adult transition (17-22) - leave adolescence, make preliminary choices for adult life
2) Entering the adult world (22-28) - make initial choices in love, occupation, friendship, values, lifestyle
3) Age 30 transition (28-33) - changes occur in life structure, either a moderate change or, more often, a severe and stressful crisis
4) Settling down (33-40) - establish a niche in society, progress on a timetable, in both family and career accomplishments; are expected to think and behave like a parent so they are facing more demanding roles and
A transition can mean a lot of things. One of the more known transitions is the boy becoming a man idea. One example I thought of that expressed this well was the one I read in “Proofs” by Richard Rodriguez, about the young boys who risked their lives to come across the border. Rodriguez stated, “You are a boy from a Mexican Village. You have come into the country on your knee with your head down. You are a man” (34). This is just one example, but there are all kinds of transitions an individual goes through in their life. One transition can be as simple as getting older and maturing. Another can be changing your views or your beliefs. You can also make a transition by turning into a totally different person like Joaquin Andieta and Jacob Todd did in the novel.
Erik Erikson developed eight psychosocial stages that occur through life. These stages help parents of younger children understand what the child is thinking and why they are acting the way that they do. For a person to become a well-rounded adult they need to succeed in each level. This essay will discuss the first six stages into young adulthood.
Nearly everyone in the modern world has heard of the term self-control, a seemingly non-important or uninteresting topic of interest. However, self-control has been related to having one of the most significant impacts on a person. Even some have gone as far to say that self-control is the “biggest predictor of a successful and satisfying life” (Pinker 1), which are bold words for a topic that many merely disregard. The idea of self-control is a concept coined in the Victorian era, and appears immensely throughout the novel, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, written by R.F. Baumeister & J. Tierney. Essentially a self-help book, ‘Willpower’ provides explanations for why humans are doing the things that they do, and why people aren’t always as virtuous as they may be expected to be. Self-control affects many facets of a person’s life, and by looking at how it is presented in psychology, and in Baumeister and Tierney’s novel, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, one will see the correlations and differences between modern research and historical perspectives on the idea of self-control, and ultimately decide if the idea of self-control is an inherent trait or a learned condition.
In transitioning into later adulthood, being in the midlife of one’s life, there can be the crisis one may face and might begin to act abnormal to how they would act before. It can be described as a “midlife crisis.” According to Daniel Levinson, the ages between 40-45 is considered the mid-life transition phase, which can also be considered a crisis period (Levinson 1978, p.21) There are numerous people who in their forties suffer from issues of the structure of their life and might be struggling transitioning from their “peak,” or so they think. Levinson specifically focused on the transitional period in a man’s life where he might be having issues transitioning in now that during this age, a man has more burdens to bear, possibly more responsibility
A willpower muscle strategy involves the will to take on challenges that requires a person to do something he or she would not have done. For example, when faced with a situation that makes one feel like giving up, instead of giving up, you find another way of tackling the problem. The willpower muscle strategy involves the ability to doing things other people would not, when faced with the same circumstances. The strategy essentially involves resisting the temptation to give in to challenges (Watkins, 22). In an academic setting, researchers found that students in American schools who resisted short term temptations and stayed focused often had exceedingly impressive grades. To determine the success rate of this strategy, researchers conducted another study where the participants were asked to suppress their feelings when watching an upsetting documentary film. The participants were thereafter to conduct a subsequent physical stamina test. The participants who showed their emotions while watching the documentary film gave up sooner as opposed to those who did not. Developing the willpower muscle strategy involves being able not to be swayed easily by emotions that hinder a person from achieving his or her set goals. In achieving success, a person should employ the use of such strategy when faced with hard challenges and difficulties. Bill Gates, one of the wealthiest men on earth when asked what his biggest success was, he said his biggest success was the ability to resist the urge of giving up (Watkins,
stage (age 0 - 22), the early adulthood stage (age 17 - 45), the middle adult
“Though the age boundaries are not set in stone, we will consider middle adulthood as the developmental period that begins at approximately 40 to 45 years of age and extends to about 60 to 65 years of age” (Santrock, 2013, p. 485). I interviewed two individuals for this paper. Each person was asked the same fifteen questions (Appendix). I interviewed a male and a female who fell in the midrange of middle adulthood.
Eric Erikson was one of the most famous theorists of the twentieth century; he created many theories. One of the most talked about theories is his theory of psychosocial development. This is a theory that describes stages in which an individual should pass as they are going through life. His theory includes nine stages all together. The original theory only included eight stages but Erikson‘s wife found a ninth stage and published it after his death. The nine stages include: trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, identity vs. identity confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation, integrity vs. despair, and hope and faith vs. despair (Crandell and Crandell, p.35-36)).
According to Erikson’s psychosocial development theory, a lifespan has eleven sequential life stages starting with prenatal (conception until birth), infancy (birth until 2 years), toddlerhood (between 2 to 3 years), early school age (4 to about 5/6 years), middle childhood (6 to 12 years), early adolescence (preteen to 18), later adolescence (18 to 24 ...
Middle adulthood begins at the age of 40 - 60. This is a time when you can’t believe where the time went. It seems like just yesterday you were graduating from college, got married, and had children. Your children are now approaching young adulthood, pushing you into the next stage of life, middle adulthood. You look in the mirror and all the signs of middle age are starting to set in. You notice wrinkles, gray hair, flabby skin and you’re having trouble reading the menu. You begin to reassess you life. Are you happy with what you have accomplished in life so far? Do you have good family relationships? Is your career on track? Are you happy with yourself?
The whole cosmos today is centered around the here and now. We thirst for everything to be done hastily so we can continue with our day. As a repercussion of that we tend to strategize our days in advance with activities to occupy
Adulthood has often been associated with independence. It serves as a turning point in life where one has to take responsibility for oneself and no longer being dependent on his or her family. Early adulthood, usually begins from late teens or early twenties and will last until the thirties (Santrock, 2013). Early adulthood revolves around changes and exploration while middle and late adulthood are more of stability. The transition from adolescence and adulthood differs among every individual. The onset of the transition is determined by many factors such as culture, family background, and the personality of the individual. Emerging adulthood (as cited in Santrock, 2014) is the term to describe the transition period from adolescence to adulthood.
Nevertheless, Erikson’s eight stages of life are presumptions for understanding an individual’s entire life span. In the same manner, these eight stages aid individuals in finding his or her full identity or ego. Every individual will complete each stage at different levels because of his or her development. However, everyone will eventually discover his or her development from birth to death.
According to Vander Zanden (1997), Erikson says that during each life stage of development, individuals will have to encounter unique life events. These life events enable the individuals to achieve their level of growth through life (Vander Zanden, 1997). Papalia and Olds (1998) say that young adulthood is a can-do period. This is the stage where decision making is important. Exercising their freedom to be independent, and using what they have learnt in their adolescent years. This is the time of exploration, trying things out, and weighing up the pros and cons. This is also the stage where the individual chooses to be away from family, to be independent, make their own decisions, buying their own home, budgeting, finance, accommodation, and day to day living.
...through 8 different psychosocial stages of life. Each step has to be completed in order to have gained knowledge and to be able to be successful in the next stage of development. Researching this topic has taught me that we can’t skip over skills and expect to have success or live happily ever after. I now realize how important learning from my mistakes can be. Childhood becomes the remembered past and adulthood the anticipated future (McAdams, 2001).