Saturday, January 01, 2011

Passages

For the last couple of weeks I have been reading "Passages -- the predictable crisis of adult life" by Gail Sheehy. The book documents the various crises that a person goes through during their lives. The book is based on interviews with couples and single people.

Many of the case studies dealt with men getting close to 40 and them worrying about their careers. There were crisis aroud 30 as well. She claimed that people start to want to change after 7 years. The book is slightly out of date, because some of the problems were caused by women not working. There are also problems at the ages around 20 and 30 of course. Some of the stories appalled me. One guy gets his wife preganant so that she can't go to law school. He wanted lots of kids, but he was only willing to sepnd 30 minutes with them in the morning and evening. What a shit!

One problem with me is that I am too old and many of the problems have passed. I should have faced them and grown as an individual, rather than remain the same. I do now see more patterns in people's behavior. How

Many of the case studies dealt with men getting close to 40 and them worrying about their careers. There were crisis aroud 30 as well. She claimed that people start to want to change after 7 years. The book is slightly out of date, because some of the problems were caused by women not working. There are also problems at the ages around 20 and 30 of course. Some of the stories appalled me. One guy gets his wife preganant so that she can't go to law school. He wanted lots of kids, but he was only willing to sepnd 30 minutes with them in the morning and evening. What a shit!

One problem with me is that I am too old and many of the problems have passed. I should have faced them and grown as an individual, rather than remain the same. I do now see more patterns in people's behavior. How this helps me I don't know.

Actually, of course I am ready for my mid-life crisis. Since I am not married, I can't get divorced and trade in my wife for a younger model. I may have to make do with changing careers.