I remember hearing someone talking about how big life changes happen in 7-year cycles
In 2007, I graduated from high school and started university. I was shy and felt awkward and uncomfortable in most social situations. I was 17 years old and moved to Calgary to live in a university dorm. I met lots of people, made lots of friends, and more dumb decisions, but survived and learned a lot.
In 2014, Amanda and I left Calgary with a one-way ticket to Colombia. We spent 6 months backpacking around South America. We had both just quit our jobs, moved out of our apartment, and sold most of our stuff. I was feeling pretty depressed and lost when we left, but over the next 6 months, I noticed myself coming back to life. Connecting with the joy of day-to-day adventure and realizing that I’d been walking down a path that wasn’t my own. By the end, I knew I needed to make some big life changes, and did.
2014 to 2020 was full of changes and growth. New homes in new countries, new friends, new work opportunities, and new adventures. In 2019 I started to think about how in 2021, 7 years after our trip to South America it would be a great time to leave everything behind once again.
We started talking about treating 2021 as a year for adventure. Quitting most of our work, selling most of our things, going offline, and adventuring for most of the year. That didn’t happen. 2021 looked a lot different than how I thought it might when I was looking ahead to it from 2019. But 2021 did become a big year of evolution.
Amanda and I got Mexican residency in February, got pregnant later in the spring, found and then moved to the city we now consider home, and then I started a new job in the fall. All consciously chosen, but not with the idea of 2021 being an important time to evolve as a person.
I had a vision of 2021 being a year where I’d go back and do something similar to what I did in 2014 and find some insight into how I wanted to grow. Instead, a bigger and different evolution happened more naturally. Into fatherhood, a new job, and settling down in a new home.
I first heard about the idea of big life changes happening in 7-year cycles because a podcaster I followed decided to shut down his show after doing it for 7 years in 2015. He thought that chapters in life are, and should be, about 7 years, so it was time to leave the podcast behind and start a new page. It struck me as odd, but as I looked back to my own life I could see that pattern as well.
Obviously, lots of changes happen every year and big personal evolutions can take place over a couple of years, but I think that in a life well lived there should be a solid story arc and big personal evolution that takes place within 7 years.
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