The 3 Stages of Life
There are three main stages of life.
Exploring (0-30)
Empire Building (30-60)
Reflecting (60-90)
I was talking about this with an older guy and he called them, “Learnin’, Earnin’, and Retirement.” Same basic idea.
The first stage lasts (on average) for the first 30 years of life. These are your exploring years. You explore as a child, explore as a teen, and get serious about exploring during your twenties. These are the years that you discover who you are and what you enjoy doing, by exploring everything.
School guides the first half of your exploration, and then you graduate and get more control over the direction that your next phase of exploration will take. Perhaps you will travel, go to college, go to trade school, begin working, or dedicate time to an art form.
The first essential question in life that we all have to answer is:
“Who am I?”
Exploring, is how we answer this question. We try different things, engage with different types of people, work alone, work in groups, go to new places, try on identities. The process of exploration looks different for everyone, because everyone is different, but the underlying need is the same. We are all trying to answer the question, “Who am I?”
The majority of people have at least a vague answer to this question by their late twenties. They have tried many things, met many people, participated in a variety of activities in different environments and they have developed preferences. Certain things vibe with them more than others. They know what they like and what they don’t like. Most importantly, they know what they would prefer to be doing with their time. This is when they are ready for stage two.
The second stage of life begins around thirty, and this phase lasts for another 30 years. These are your Empire Building years. You were guided by the school system for 18 years and then you had 12 years of self-directed exploration. During those 12 years you came to know yourself, and you developed an intimate understanding of your personality and skill set. You now know what you are good at, what you are not good at, where your values lie, and how you prefer to spend your time. In the first stage of life you discovered who you are.
The second essential question in life that we all must answer is:
“How far can I take who I am?”
This is the essential question of the “Empire Building” phase. How far can I take who I am? How far can I go with this?
I’ve discovered I’m a writer. Well, how many books can I write? How many articles? How many poems? Can I get published and read widely? Can I sell them? Can I become a bestselling author? How far can I take this?
I’ve discovered I’m a builder. Well, how many buildings can I build? How many houses? How many commercial buildings? Can I build something unique? Could I become an architect? Could I start a construction company? How far can I take this?
I’ve discovered I’m a nurturer. Well, how can I best nurture people? Can I start a family? Can I work as a nurse? Can I be a caretaker for the elderly? Can I care for my relatives and their children? Can I nurture my community? How far can I take this?
In phase one, we each discovered who we are. For each of us it was different, but in stage two, no matter what activity we pursue, we are all trying to answer the same question. “How far can I take this?”
These are the years in which it is appropriate to be a workaholic (to some degree) on the things that are important to you. Of course you don’t want to obsess to the point that it negatively impacts your health or relationships, but it is normal to begin taking your life task very seriously around the age of thirty.
Everyone wants to feel that they put all of themselves into something and that they used their talents to their maximum potential. These are the years that you make sure you do. It is of extreme importance that you take this stage seriously, because in the final stage you will be reflecting on how effectively you manifested who you are into the world.
You have worked hard for thirty years, maybe longer, and it is time to rest. In the “Reflecting,” stage your efforts are rewarded and you are given time to breathe and relax.
The final essential question in life that we all must answer is:
“How do I feel about my life?”
In the Reflecting stage we think back on our Exploring stage, the influences and experiences that molded and shaped us, and on our Empire Building stage, and the efforts that we put into manifesting ourselves in the world. How do we feel about those experiences and efforts? How do we feel about the decisions we made? How do we feel about our treatment of others or our treatment of ourselves? How do we feel about our family, our friends, our career?
All of these questions swirl in your mind during the Reflecting years. Many elders in this stage look back on their life and condense their experiences into wisdom that they can share with their family and with the world. They have lived and they have reflected, and they can share lessons from what they learned.
I believe it is important for all of us to take these three stages seriously. While it will look very differently for different people, the three essential questions are of extreme importance for you to answer during your life.
Because I believe it is so important, I want to point out some common mistakes I have noticed in my brief time on this planet.
One of the main mistakes is people that want to skip a stage. This story should sound familiar. Ambitious young man wants to skip straight to “Empire Building” directly out of college. He sells his soul to a corporation and works for fifteen years climbing the corporate ladder.
At 37 he has a mid-life crisis. He realizes the company doesn’t matter to him. He was only chasing the money. Even worse, he has no idea who he really is. He never took the time to explore and he has no idea what really matters to him. He took on the company’s identity and he has no idea WHO HE IS.
He quits his job and takes off on some extreme form of exploration to try to get to the bottom of it. He never finished stage one. He skipped it. But life demands that you answer that question. While he thought he was getting ahead of everyone else, he ended up having to go back to repeat the level he skipped. Everyone else his age, knowing who they are, comfortably continued building.
Some people love the Exploration stage because it is full of freedom and possibility. They don’t want to give that up, so they avoid the Empire Building stage. They will trash talk “settling down,” and “societal pressures,” but what they are really avoiding is the work and the restriction. Seeing how far you can take who you are requires that you focus on something. It can be a career, a family, an artistic pursuit, a business, anything. But to focus on something you have to say no to everything else. People that love the freedom and possibility of Exploring have a hard time saying no to everything else, so that they can focus on who they are and build an empire around that.
I am one of these people. I love to explore. I could do it happily for the rest of my life, but I know that if I do that, my Reflection stage will not be pleasant. I won’t have kids and grandkids to visit me. I won’t have a body of artistic work to look back on. I won’t have a legion of former students that mention me as an influence on their lives. I won’t have fulfilled my maximum potential, and on a practical note, I may not own a house or even have the money to retire, which would be very unpleasant indeed.
“Settling down” doesn't mean settling. It means focusing. Focusing on something that IS you, and ignoring everything that ISN’T. That is the only way to take who you are as far as it can possibly go. That is where fulfillment lies. It will allow you to look back on your life and smile.
Some people, however, choose not to look back on their life. They choose to stay busy. Once you have worked for thirty years building your empire, it is difficult to stop. Patterns have been put in place. You wake up at 5:30. It’s what you’ve always done. Then you go to the office. It’s what you’ve always done. You have a routine.
How many people have you heard complain about their parents or grandparents being unable to slow down? It is an all too common story and it is a stage I will definitely struggle with. I’m a doer. I like to make plans and execute them. I love the “Empire Building" stage. It’s full of hope and promise and potential. I wouldn’t want to give that up either.
For some people, they are relieved to retire. They’ve worked hard and they are so glad it’s over. But for many people in their sixties, everything they’ve worked on for their entire life finally begins to pay off. And they’re just supposed to stop?
I’m a young man, and it isn’t my place to tell my elders what to do. I can only imagine how difficult it will be for me to stop after thirty years of Empire Building. I think it can be a gradual slowing down, rather than a hard stop. But it does need to gradually slow.
If there are things about reflecting that would bother you, it’s even more important for you to stop and unpack those feelings and those thoughts. There may still be time to fix them. Taking the time to reflect on how you feel about your life is essential after you retire, so you can wrap up any loose ends, come to terms with the past, and above all else, enjoy the fruits of your labor.
I want everyone to succeed in all three stages of life. I believe life is built for us to discover who we are in the first stage, take that as far as we can in the second, and reflect on how it all went in the third. I believe each person has a life task that they are put here to accomplish, and I believe that part of mine is encouraging others to take theirs seriously and reach for their maximum potential. Pausing to reflect on the questions that you have already answered and the questions you have still to answer, is important, in order to stay on target.
