Tag: Life

Time to leave behind the 7-year life-cycles?

Time to leave behind the 7-year life-cycles?

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You have probably heard about the 7 year itch. And also the nice story about our body renewing ALL its cells every 7 years. Maybe you’ve also heard about the 7-year Chakras from Vedic India, or about 7 year cycles from the ancient Greeks, or the Waldorf theories of the anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner. And maybe you are wondering, “Is there any truth behind these 7-year cycles?” or “Do these 7-year cycles still apply to our lives today?”.

Read further to understand why these are outdated and how Life, portioned in Blobs of 6-years and bundled in the seasons of Spring (growing), Summer (maturing), Autumn (harvesting) and Winter (releasing) mirror our lives, as we live it today, in a much more adequate manner.

Does our body renew itself every 7 years?

To start with, let’s get rid of this one, absolutely false, belief that the body and mind renew themselves every 7 years. Sure, cells in our bodies die all the time. And they are renewed continuously. But, according to The New York Public Library’s Science Desk Reference (Stonesong Press, 1995) red blood cells replace themselves every four months; white blood cells do so every 2-3 weeks. Colon cells last only 4 days and sperm cells only 3!  Skin cells live 2-3 weeks and brain cells last for life! Neurons in our brains do die, but they are never replaced. Sure, we do go through many changes in 7 years, but so do we every 5 years or 10 years or even 2 years. Scientifically, there really is no basis behind the 7 year belief.

Is the 7 year itch true?

man-couple-people-woman-600-x-400A movie starring Marilyn Monroe from 1955 with the name “The Seven Year Itch” helped popularize the idea about marriages getting in to trouble every 7 years. 7 years after marriage often is a difficult time that corresponds with couples having less time for each other, as they run around their little kids at home. But data actually shows that 7 years just represents an average. A study conducted by a psychology professor from Wright State University, Dr. Larry A. Kurdek, suggests that there tends to be a decline in marital quality after 4 years, with a high number of divorces actually happening at that time. Another study conducted by the Grant Thornton accountancy group in 2010 shows that most marriages actually fall apart at the 12 year mark. Another study from 2012 actually shows the dip to be around 3 years after marriage, citing the reason to be that the today’s couples often get together later in life, without having spent enough time getting to know each other before having children. So, once again here, there is no real scientific proof or data pointing towards a recurring 7 year itch.

Are 7 year life cycles keeping up with our changing lifestyles?

Rudolf Steiner, a teacher of Anthroposophy, based on whose theories the Waldorf school concept was developed, described the cycle of life in stages of 7 years in 1924. Several 7-year life cycle models today are based on his stages. Since then human life has made many advancements, and thanks to medical advances, many more years have been added to the human life span. Read below to see how the 7 year life stages tend to miss  out important milestones that are prominently visible in the 6 year life stage descriptions.

Rudolf Steiner’s first 3 stages (0-7; 7-14; 14-21 years) cover the childhood and learning years. Unfortunately, important milestones that exist today are not highlighted appropriately in these stages as opposed to the Spring season of the 6 year Blobs (1-24 years) :

  • Steiner’s 0-7 years vs. the 1st Blob of 1-6 years: Schooling in most OECD countries starts at 6 (if not already at 5), thus completing the toddler years at around 6.
  • Steiner’s 14-21 vs. the 3rd Blob of 13-18 years: Today puberty and teenage years are considered to be the 13-18/19 age group, with a majority of teens finishing high school at around 18 years of age.
  • With education taking longer and longer, the learning years do not end with 21 any more. Most vocations and academic studies go well in to the mid-20s, as described in the 4th Blob of Spring: The Emerging Adult (19-24 years). 

The next 3 Steiner “Sun” stages (21-28; 28-35; 35-42) signify the adult working years where play is turned in to responsibility. In contrast, the Summer Season of the 6-year Blobs spans the years 25- 48, reflecting the shift in the highly productive working years of today.

  • Steiner’s 21-28 vs. the 4th and 5th Blobs of 19-24 & 25-30 years: Steiner’s “Sun” stages fail to capture the new trend of the Emerging Adults (19-24 years). In this age group, the emerging adults do not see themselves as adolescents any more, but many also do not see themselves entirely as adults who should take on full financial responsibility and commit to long term relationships. These adulthood responsibilities are increasingly being postponed to later, as described in the 1st Blob of Summer: Young Adult (25-30 years).

The last 3 stages (42-48; 48-56; 56-63) are the last stages as described by Rudolf Steiner, where Saturn completes its second return and the soul can manifest an even higher element of Self called Spirit Man.

  • With human lifespan now increasingly extending in to the 80s and 90s the Autumn Season (49-72 years) of the 6 year Blobs describes today’s middle-aged adults as healthy, productive, independence seeking adults as compared to the ‘soul-seeking’ adults of the Saturn stages.
  • The traditional age of retirement, that typically ends with the 3rd Blob of Summer: The Young Elder (61-66 years), and is portrayed in Steiner’s Stages, is now being considered to be postponed by some OECD countries. This inevitable change, resulting from our ever longer lives and portrayed very well in the book The 100 year life – living and working in an age of longevity, makes it a financial necessity to extend active working life to the early 70s (4th Blob of Autumn: The Independent Elder: 67-72 years), instead of the relatively “young” age of 63 (where Saturn has already completed its second return).

The 7 cycles of the 7 Chakras

As explained illustratively in the article “The 7 cycles of the 7 chakra – The continuity of life” the Indian Vedic Chakra is based on the philosophy that:

…every seven years humans achieve various levels of understanding based upon what phase of spiritual development their endocrine/ chakra systems is in…Each of the chakras affect our life in various ways. Within each of these stages, the other chakras influence the progress of the individual’s self-realization process. There are in each cycle primary influential traits that direct these phases. Every seven years we repeat this cycle, while during that phase feeling the impact of the chakra that is maturing in that particular cycle.

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The 7 Vedic Chakras

The 7×7 matrix defines the life cycle, year by year, and ends at 49 years. At a time when the average life of humans was around 50 years, or maybe even 60, these descriptions may have sufficed. But with today’s human lifespan extending in to the 80s and 90s, we simply have much more time to achieve all that is compressed in this 49-year lifespan. For example, according to the Chakras, in the 3rd Chakra (15-21 years), the individual is seeking stable relationships. Today’s 21 or even 24 year olds (Emerging Adults) (or sometimes even 30 year olds!) are seldom ready for such commitments. The seventh and last Chakra (43-49 years) in this cycle is the cycle of spirituality. In today’s world, this soul seeking maturity is also being postponed to later stages.

I believe the time has come to redefine these age-old definitions and adapt them to today’s lifestyles. The 6-year Blobs describe this change in the most natural manner. What do you think? Would be great to hear your views on this!

Read more about the 6 year Blobs:
Spring: 1-6, 7-12, 13-18, 19-24
Summer: 25-30, 31-36, 37-42, 43-48
Autumn: 49-54, 55-60, 61-66, 67-72
Winter: 73-78, 79-84, 85-91, 91-…

References and Resources

Does the Human Body Really Replace Itself Every 7 Years?

Study Finds a 7-Year Itch, and a 4-Year One

Forget the seven-year itch, the real test comes at TWELVE years

The Greek Concept of the “Seven Stages of Life”and Its New Testament Significance

The Stages of Life According to Rudolf Steiner

The 7 cycles of the 7 Chakra

 

Life changes over time

Life changes over time

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Nothing is constant. Life changes. Lifestyles change. Civilizations change.

Average life expectancy in Europe in the beginning of the 20th century was around 50 years. By the middle of the 20th century it was around 70 years. Today it is around 80 years and increasing. As a matter of fact, the fastest growing age group today is the 80+ age group. This means, today we have around 30 years longer to manage all that our great-grand parents managed to do within 50 years. Our children will have up to 90 or even 100 years, which is almost double the amount of time.

The emergence of new life stages

No wonder we need new models to classify life today. Just like the concept of “childhood” was developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, children until then being perceived as “young adults” and as a vital part of the work force, the past century has seen the emergence of up to 3 new stages. In the beginning of the 1900s, the concept of “adolescence” or “teenagers” was developed  by G. Stanley Hall as a “time of disturbance and psychological confusion”. Erik Eriksson and Anna Freud further evolved the definitions of this stage in the 1950s.

Up till quite recently, most studies of human life stages have stuck with these categories: infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old-age.  Adulthood being described as a longish span between 20-60 years and old-age was anything that came after that. Some theories did break down adulthood into the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, but old-age has still been pretty much lumped together in one longish stage until end-of-life. In today’s world a 60 or 70-year-old is no longer a frail, dependent elder. Today’s 60-year-old still has another 20-30 years to look forward to and this long stage does not do justification to reality any more. Thus emerged a classification into the “young old” (60-85) and the “old old”or “oldest old” (85+). Some gerontologists also added the “middle old” stage (75-85). But there is no general consensus on this division yet.

Another phenomena that has been observed as a result of this extension of human lifespan is the fact that young adults are ever more hesitant in taking on responsibilities and in committing themselves too soon. These young adults prefer to take their own time in choosing from the sea of possibilities in front of them. Different vocations are tried out, job changes are frequent, marriage commitments are postponed and children come much later. This phenomena resulted in the creation of yet another stage (by Jeffrey Arnett in the year 2000) the “emerging adults” that spans from adolescence till adulthood.

Changing lifestyles

When I was a child/teenager, I would come home from school, finish my homework and rush out to be with my friends. I would come back home at the onset of darkness, have dinner and maybe watch a TV program or two on one of the few TV channels, before surrendering myself to bed. Most of the time was spent outside of the house or with friends, or maybe even just ‘getting bored’ at home.

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Child sitting on sofa with tablet

Compare that to a typical day of today’s children/teenagers. With access to unlimited digital entertainment, be it via TV, streaming, tablets, smartphones or other digital medium, the children today seldom have the opportunity to “get bored”. Social interaction is often via apps and “alone time” is something they look forward to. Just last week, when we wanted to go out to see the new blockbuster “Dr Strange”, my friend’s 10 year old son preferred to stay home with his tablet. What a change! Or compare my childhood/teenage years to those of my mother or grandmother. The expectations on these Blobs really have changed over time!

A similar and major change can also be seen in the emerging/young-adult Blobs. Thirty years ago, in my young days, if you were not married, hadn’t moved out of house and didn’t have a fixed job by the late 20s,  you were considered to be rather late. Having the first child after 30 was considered extremely late and medically irresponsible. 30 years before that, in my mother’s generation, the appropriate age was the mid-20s and 30 years before that, in my grandmother’s generation, it was the early-20s or even earlier. Compare that to today! Now you see more and more young adults living carefree, single lives up in to their mid/late 30s. Today’s challenging job-market doesn’t make it easier for them and settling down is readily postponed. Read more on this in the emerging and young adult Blobs.

woman-690036_640Such age-based changes in expectations can not only be observed in the other Blobs, but also on gender roles within the different Blobs. Whereas 30 or 60 years ago (my mother and grandmother’s generation) it was the norm that a mother stayed at home to cater for the children and household, while the father had to ‘earn the bread’, this setup is increasingly not sustainable or expected any more. Be it due to economic reasons, or due to self-fulfillment reasons, mothers of today are increasingly going back to the work-force, after a short baby-break, and are expecting fathers to take on their part of the household chores. Though it is still an exception to see stay-at-home fathers, the trend is evolving and the stigma that went with it up till a few years ago is diminishing.

Besides age and gender based changes, family institutions and work-environment based changes are also developing at a fast pace. Divorces, single or single-parent households and same-gender households are on the rise, as the stigmas associated to them in the past generations are dissolving. On work-side, project based contracts, teleworking and consultants are on the rise. Being employed by the same company for long periods of 20 years or more, as was the norm before, is now the exception. Additionally, in many countries the typical retirement age of 65 years is being questioned, as financing the prolonged old-age stages is getting to be challenging.

Is all change good?

So, where are we heading? A skeptic would say we are moving towards insecure economic times, with broken families and lonely, unsocial individuals. An optimist would say we are moving towards longer and healthier lives, with infinite opportunities and possibilities and more freedom.

What do you think? Would be great if you would share your thoughts!

Read more about the 6 year Blobs:
Spring: 1-6, 7-12, 13-18, 19-24
Summer: 25-30, 31-36, 37-42, 43-48
Autumn: 49-54, 55-60, 61-66, 67-72
Winter: 73-78, 79-84, 85-91, 91-…