January 2, 2021December 28, 2020 by Pete Wiley

Life Cycles—The Ebb and Flow of Our Lives

Most things in life are cyclical. We have periods when everything goes our way and periods when nothing seems to go right at all. This is natural and normal. Rather than always waiting for the highs and bemoaning the lows, we need to expect and learn from the lows and fully experience and be grateful for the highs.

There is always something beautiful, meaningful, and important in our lives, even in the lowest points.

Life is limitless

When we move through the cycles in our lives, the highs can seem quite fleeting, and the lows can seem like an almost permanent condition—but this perspective is just a matter of outlook. When we’re really feeling on top of the world, our lives can feel like there are no limits—that the world is our oyster. But when we fall into the doldrums, it can feel like there are limits all around us. If you think about it, those same limits exist whether we’re on a peak or in a valley, and in reality, all of those limits are self-imposed. Ultimately, life is limitless.

Of course, we all have barriers and challenges in our lives. We all have a finite amount of time, money, and energy. But what we do within those parameters is totally up to us. We choose our own lifestyle, we choose what we eat and how fit we are, we choose our activities and how meaningful they are. If you are living an ordinary life, it’s the life you’ve chosen—and it’s never too late to change your mind (see Choice).

Our mood

A large portion of the cycles in our lives is driven by our mood. Our mood will sometimes be good and sometimes awful, even for the most cheerful among us. We will have times when we feel down, when we are irritable, when we feel hopeless. But we will have other times when we feel on top of the world, happy and euphoric. And we will have many times when we will be just flat—neither up nor down.

We all have changes in our moods. We should enjoy the happy, carefree moods and seek to understand the down moods, as they are both part of who we are. If we try to deny our bad moods or blame the circumstances or other people, we will not learn anything from them, and we will not appreciate our good moods as much.

When we do find ourselves in a bad mood—whether it manifests itself as irritability, sadness, hopelessness, or frustration—it’s an ideal time for reflection. We can think about our circumstances and our emotional journeys and try to figure out where these feelings are coming from. Sometimes we can track our mood back to some specific circumstance or interaction.

However, sometimes we just can’t explain it. In these circumstances, it can be very helpful to just be aware of our mood, to sit with it and fully experience it. It might just be part of the normal cycle of our emotions. We should embrace our bad moods and learn how to not give them power over our outlook or how we interact with people and the world.

Our level of excitement

We will also have times that are thrilling, exciting, and/or awe-inspiring. These are the times we strive for, plan for, and look forward to. They might involve places we’ve never been before or activities that we rarely encounter in our daily lives. These times are the times that will stick with us, the ones that form the foundation for fond memories that stay with us for the long term.

We will also have times that are routine, times when we’re doing things we’ve done a thousand times before. During these times, we might be bored or fixated on the next period of our life when we expect a little excitement.

There are two problems with this perspective. First, if we’re only open to excitement during the times we’ve planned to be excited, then we will miss out on many times where there is the potential for excitement but we just don’t see it (see Excitement). There is potential for excitement every day—we just have to be on the lookout for it and grab it when it comes.

Second, we have to make the times in our lives that aren’t exciting meaningful. Just because we’re not excited doesn’t mean it’s wasted time or time we have to just get through. There is potential in every moment—potential for reflection, for love, for beauty. We have to be open to the range of meaningful emotions in every moment of our lives.

Relationships

Our relationships are cyclical, too. One of the big reasons why many relationships fail is unrealistic expectations regarding how smooth they will be. Given that people have cyclical moods and go through challenging periods in their lives, it makes sense that the dynamics of their relationships will have similar ups and downs. It’s up to us to work through the challenging times and learn from both the good times and the bad in order to build stronger relationships.

When things are tense and it seems like you’re just not getting along with your significant other, it can be helpful to understand the different pieces of that dynamic. It can be all too easy to get defensive and think (or say) that it’s not your fault, that the other person has changed. The truth is that we all change, we’re all evolving, and we all get moody, irritable, and angry sometimes. It’s up to us to try to recognize when that is happening, both in ourselves and in our significant other.

It’s also true that couples that have been together a long time will fall into routines, and it may, at times, seem boring or ordinary. But like all aspects of our lives, our relationships will only be ordinary if we let them. It’s up to us to keep them fresh and interesting and to keep the fire burning. It can be hard, and it does take effort. We have to identify and enhance the aspects of our relationships that are special and work every day to keep those aspects alive. We have to find new elements of our relationships and keep them evolving.

Of course, relationships will have periods of routine. But they will only become ordinary if we allow them to.

Consistency in our lives

As with anything that has ups and downs, life can feel inconsistent. In this context, “inconsistent” is just another word for “changing,” and change is good (see Evolve). But even if our lives are always changing, there are certain aspects that should remain consistent—such as the qualities within ourselves that contribute toward a meaningful life. These might include curiosity, generosity, gratitude, spirituality, or any number of qualities that contribute to the life we want to live. Regardless of where we are in the cycles of our lives, we should strive to keep these qualities constant or improving.

If we can achieve this, even the lows in our lives will be meaningful.

Our lives are like waves in the ocean. Sometimes they’re large, rough, and powerful, and sometimes they’re smooth, calm, and regular. We have to learn to ride the waves of our lives in whatever form they take.