Lifequakes
Life transitions can be difficult and happen throughout the life cycle. When transitions happen in an anticipated way like graduating from high school or retiring from a job it can be a period of adjustment. But when the changes we face are outside of the normal flow of life and happen suddenly it can be extremely difficult to navigate. These jarring events which Bruce Feiler, author of the excellent new book, Life Is In the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age, describes these occasions as “lifequakes”. You can find his book here:
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Transitions-Mastering-Change-Any/dp/1594206821
Lifequakes are those moments in one's life where your world is turned upside down. Where the trajectory of where you thought you were headed becomes either more difficult or impossible and where adaptation and struggle to find your path forward can be challenging. We tend to think of life moving along in a linear fashion from birth to death with various markers like graduation, marriage, starting a family and retirement all happen in some kind of orderly fashion.
In Bruce’s book he interviews hundreds of individuals and informs us that very few of us have lives like that. In fact the majority of us have numerous “lifequakes” throughout our lives. Those that navigate them fairly well are individuals who don’t struggle with and lament their altered life but learn to accept and adapt to the challenges presented. An example of one of these lifequakes might look like the following: Imagine for a moment that you are a 17 year old competitive swimmer who has been training and sacrificing their whole life for your dream and a chance to make the Olympic team. You head to a party with your friends one Friday night and are involved in a terrible car accident. You survive that accident but your injuries take away any chance that you’ll be able to continue swimming competitively.
This Olympic hopeful who has been on this trajectory, laser focused in their quest now is faced with both the grief of having to let go of their dream as well as how to figure out their life moving forward. This is a pretty big quake and it might take this person quite a bit of time before they can reimagine and begin to rebuild their life. Sadly many of us faced with these situations find ourselves wallowing in self pity, anger and frustration and avoiding facing their new reality by struggling, distracting and resisting the change needed to move forward.
We all experience these quakes big and small throughout our lives. If we can accept that life is not linear and when challenges present themselves into our lives we remember that we have resilience and learn to accept and adapt in order to find a new path forward.