Passages – by Gail Sheehy
Date read: 7/3/20. Recommendation: 8/10
Some might say this book is a bit outdated (1976), but as much as we might like to think we’re different than previous generations, our behaviors and thought patterns remain unchanged. Passages is organized around the stages of life. I found it insightful to reflect upon decades of life that I’ve already worked my way through and look ahead to the challenges many have faced in the ones ahead. Sheehy draws upon real stories to breathe life into each decade and highlights key lessons in personal development, finding yourself, relationships, parenting, and allowing yourself to evolve. As she emphasizes, “The work of adult life is not easy…each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before.”
See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.
My Notes:
Development:
“The work of adult life is not easy…each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before.” GS
“We must be willing to change chairs if we want to grow. There is no permanent compatibility between a chair and a person.” GS
False fear in 20s is that choices are irrevocable. Two impulses at work during this period…Merger Self is to create safe structure and make strong commitments without much self-examination, taken to an extreme creates a locked-in feeling. Seeker Self favors urge to explore and experiment, limiting commitments and structure, taken to an extreme leads to flaky mindset bouncing from one job or relationship to the next. Balance determines how you exit your 20s.
“Resolving the issues of one passage does not insulate us forever. There will be other tricky channels ahead, and we learn by moving through them. If we pretend the crises of development don’t exist, not only will they rise up later and hit with a greater wallop, but in the meantime we don’t grow. We’re captives. If the growth work has been done on the developmental tasks of one passage, it bodes well for meeting the challenges of the next one.”
Timing your leaps and the sigmoid curve:
“Events that demand a leap of action before we’re ready often have the happy effect of boosting us on to the next stage of development in spite of ourselves.”
“Working toward a degree is something young people already know how to do. It postpones having to prove oneself in the bigger, bullying arena.” GS
Finding yourself:
Prioritizing, searching for, and finding a work experience that resonates with you is the first step towards resolving conflicts of dependency and creating an independent identity.
“Somewhere along the line of development we discover what we really are, and then we make our real decision for which we are responsible. Make that decision primarily for yourself because you can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your own child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life and what you become yourself.” Eleanor Roosevelt
Parenting:
The best parents don’t shield us from problems of security, acceptance, control, jealousy, rivalry. For a child to truly know themselves, they must come to terms with all these parts.
Relationships:
“Oh, what tears and rejection await the girl who imbues her first delicate match with fantasies of permanence, expecting that he at this gelatinous stage will fit with her in a finished puzzle for all the days” GS
Allow yourself to evolve:
Those who reach mid-life (50s) and are still trying to find meaning in the same place as previous decades, doing the same things, end up stuck through their attempts to cling to the familiar. Your interests, your sense of meaning, and your own authenticity should evolve through each chapter of life.
A deeper investment in the choices of your early years makes possible the enrichment of your middle years, and so on.
Be brave enough to confront each of life’s passages. You can’t skip chapter if you want sustainable personal growth and to develop into the best version of yourself.
“The willingness to move through each passage is the equivalent to the willingness to live abundantly. If we don’t change, we don’t grow.” GS
“Growth demands a temporary surrender of security. It may mean a giving up of familiar but limiting patterns, safe but unrewarding work, values no longer believed in, relationships that have lost their meaning.” GS
“The power to animate all of life’s seasons is a power that resides within us.” GS