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The Seasons of a Man's Life: The Groundbreaking 10-Year Study That Was the Basis for Passages!
The first full report from the team that discovered the patterns of adult development, this breakthrough study ranks in significance with the original works of Kinsey and Erikson, exploring and explaining the specific periods of personal development through which all human begins must pass--and which together form a common pattern underlying all human lives.
"A pioneering and radical theory of adult development."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"A pioneering and radical theory of adult development."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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August 7, 2015
The Seasons of a Man’s Life (1978) by Daniel J. Levinson (with Charlotte Darrow, Edward Klein, Maria Levinson and Braxton McKee) is a book for every man at any age of his life, but I recommend The Seasons of a Man’s Life for young men who are in high school or in college because this book will help shape and reshape life decisions for decades to come.
At age 35 I first learned of this book from my late mentor Joseph Campbell, who mentioned this book in an interview ages ago, and I wished I had discovered these secrets much sooner.
Often I have been plagued with an anxiety that my life choices were my own and I was a lone island in a sea of men. That anxiety, however, is a false and a misguided one. After reading The Seasons of a Man’s Life I found that I was not only not alone but that at certain key stages of my life biological choices were surfacing—the same it does to most men.
The book is a field guide to a man’s life done as a scientific study over the course of two decades, in the sixties and seventies—and the findings then are as relevant and true as they are today. A man’s life consists of four primary cycles, which are:
1. Childhood and Adolescence: age 0-22
2. Early Adulthood: age 17-45
3. Middle Adulthood: age 40-65
4. Late Adulthood: age 60-?
The three major ages for a man’s life to pivot and turn drastically into one direction or another based on that man’s personal choices are age 30, age 35, and age 40. For me, I would include age 25—hence the age I decided to leave America and travel/work in Asia—but for this post I will focus on the most significant ages of 30, 35 and 40.
Age 30 is a very important biological turning point for men. Most men, like myself, somehow come face-to-face with a decision that they also somehow know will shape and reshape their life for many years to come. Even if all is well and going smoothly up until this point, the biological side to the man’s life will rise up and make the man seriously question everything in his life. The study found there are two choices: (a) the man keeps doing what he is doing and accepts the consequences for better or worse; or (b) the man makes a big change and decides to radically change his life.
At the age of 30, I found myself in a toxic marriage with a woman who did not support my writing—even the smallest amount of encouragement seemed alien to her. I was faced, then, with a difficult decision. Either I continued living in a failed marriage with a woman I could never come to love (how could I love someone who did not love me as a writer—the very essence of who I am?) or I could make a big change and start anew. This was not an easy decision, since we had a daughter involved, but it took me another three years to end the marriage and make a full commitment to my writing career, which I began whole-heartedly at the age of 18.
As I read and reflected on this study of a man’s life, I began to see other men around the age of 30 making career decisions that revolved around this age. Jake Gyllenhaal, at the age of 34 in 2015, is one such man. In an Esquire interview he said that at around the age of 30 he decided to focus on serious films and implement an immersion technique to his acting.
This following text comes from the Esquire interview in May, 2015 and expresses my point perfectly:
“Then something tectonic took place. His priorities shifted and his perspective changed. ‘I woke up one day and I wasn’t in the right room,’ he says. ‘It was like a David Byrne song: ‘That’s not my beautiful house. That’s not my beautiful wife.’
“So, he changed his life, the way men sometimes do around 30. He moved from his native Los Angeles to New York and pursued theatre. He chose smaller budget independent movies, with darker, more challenging themes.”
And this kind of life-altering sudden realization was exactly what happened to me at the age of 30. I simply woke up one morning and found myself in the wrong room married to the wrong woman and knew I had to change my life or I would become a living zombie.
And all of this has to do with a man’s Dream and the life structure that either does or does not support that Dream,
“The choice of a mate influences, and is influenced by, the overall character of that structure. One man tries to build a structure in which he can pursue his special dream or vision; he marries a woman who shares that dream and wants to join him on the journey toward its realization.
“Another man betrays his dream: seeking to build a structure that is more acceptable to parents or is ‘safer’ in some inner sense, he marries a woman who will value and support this conservatism. At some later time he may blame her, with much or little justification, for her part in leading him away from his dream” (p 55).
The Age Thirty Transition (p 58) is the process the man goes through to change his first life structure he created in his twenties. During this transition he is establishing a new life structure that will carry him through his thirties. If a failed transition occurs at this age, the new life structure usually has devastating effects to the man’s life and psyche and many suicides often happen before the age of forty, because the man fails to see the life structures beyond that age having any real significance to himself, to his dream, or to humanity.
“During the Age Thirty Transition,” writes the researchers, “the provisional, exploratory quality of the twenties is ending and a man has a sense of greater urgency. Life is becoming more serious, more restrictive, more ‘for real’. He has the feeling: ‘If I want to change my life—if there are things in it that I don’t like, or things missing that I would like to have—this is the time to make a start, for soon it will be too late.’ The Age Thirty Transition provides a ‘second chance’ to create a more satisfactory life structure within early adulthood” (p 85).
The next important age to consider is 35, coming at the end of the Settling Down Period and from this point on to age 40, the man enters what the researchers call “Becoming One’s Own Man”, which contains the “major developmental tasks…to accomplish the goals of the Settling Down enterprise…to speak more strongly with one’s own voice, and to have a greater measure of authority” (p 60).
But this Dream comes with a super-inflated asterisk:
“Those who betray the Dream in their twenties will have to deal later with the consequences. Those who build a life structure around the Dream in early adulthood have a better chance for personal fulfilment, though years of struggle may be required to maintain the commitment and work toward its realization” (p 92).
I can confess to this truth. In my early twenties I formed the Dream of becoming a writer/published author able to work for myself and dedicate a life to writing. Every choice I made since leaving a major bank at the age of 25 involved this question: “Money aside, will this decision make me happy?”
And more often than not the consequences of my decision made me happy, despite having a happiness that included me having to survive hardships and struggles around every turn.
And I see why most people give up on their dreams. To continue chasing a Dream in the face of a pragmatic world putting out more obstacles than helping hands, a man must be filled with a madness that other men fear to see or touch. Just ask Don Quixote.
But it is at this thought I recall Brad Pitt as Achilles answering the small servant boy who at the beginning to the film Troy says he would be too afraid to fight the giant soldier, and Achilles responds, “That's why no one will remember your name.”
It takes this amount of confidence, arrogance and madness to achieve one’s Dream. And most men come up short and put a gun to their head, because they believe their existence means very little to humanity without a Dream to achieve.
The study reveals several men followed over several decades of their lives, but two of these men drastically altered their lives after age 35. One New York executive named “Paul Namson” made millions in business and real estate only to retire to try his hand at writing/publishing full time. He later dabbled in real estate again, buying and selling land down in the Caribbean. He just could not write like he wanted.
By age 45, Namson had not reached the commercial success that he wanted as a novelist, and the researchers offered a reason as to why. They believe it takes at least ten years or more for someone to master their industry/craft. If one takes up writing full time at the age of 35, he can expect little to no result within the first ten years.
The same can be said for the writer beginning at age 20 or 25—one must put in the time, unless you have connections and are the exception. There were writers, however, who made strong impressions early on who later faltered and failed (I can think of David Foster Wallace and his book Infinite Jest off the top of my head—he later killed himself after years of mediocre success following this breakout novel).
The other man in the study was named William Paulsen and after working as a computer operator at “Bowles & White” in Florida for eight years he saw no opportunity for growth. He and his family were living a secure, comfortable life in a big house (p 282). After age 35 he struggled for years with the question of becoming a better man, and later he decided to risk it all for a better title and position with a new company.
At the age of 40, he sold the house, moved to the New York area, where his family lived in a small apartment, found a job working with the space agency working on computer designs for the Apollo missions. A few years later, after a few company changes in the industry, he was jobless, had a serious health condition (likely due to the stress) and his wife was supporting him. He had made a move and failed, and unlike Namson, Paulsen did not have millions stashed away in the bank to fall back on for financial security.
I find this level of biological interaction fascinating—and it seems to act at times as a counteragent to our own well-being. There was no reason why Paulsen needed to make that change, but he took the risk and failed, his family suffering the most from the consequences of his life choice.
And this brings us to “illusions”—a slippery snake that can either protect you with tremendous power or turn on you and strike its poison into your veins with lethal consequences.
“A man’s review of the past goes on in the shadow of the future…Illusions can be tremendously harmful,” writes the researchers, “but they can also inspire works of great nobility and accomplishment. They play a crucial, helpful and hurtful part in the lives of most persons during early adulthood. Some reduction in illusions is now appropriate and beneficial, but it is neither possible nor desirable to overcome all illusions in the Mid-life Transition or even by the end of middle adulthood. Illusion continues to have its place—a mixed blessing, or a mixed curse—all through the life cycle. The best way to avoid illusions is not to want anything very much. And that is hardly a prescription for a full life” (p 192-3).
And this is also how you can easily spot the phonies: those men who jokingly tell you that they never wanted what they got. The famed writer who stands in front of an audience and says he never wanted to be a writer. I call bullshit on that every time.
You never hear of a star basketball player telling a reporter he never wanted to play basketball. Nope. Athletes, unlike many artists with false modesty and false humility, will tell you true. These athletes practiced as a child, worked hard, wanted their dream to come true more than anything—and they ended up being successful. The ones who half-ass it are usually the ones who fail. But every person’s Destiny and Dream is different. You have to want to be the best to be the best.
“A man’s Dream is his personal myth,” explains the researchers, “an imagined drama in which he is the central character, a would-be hero engaged in a noble quest…
“As Goethe said, ‘For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him, he must regard himself as greater than he is…
“But when we say that a man is enacting his myth, or pursuing his Dream, we are making plain that his activity has a far more profound meaning. A myth is a construction; it serves his human needs and it reflects meanings stemming from deeper, often unconscious sources in the personality and in the culture” (p 246-7).
And still creative artists are unique creatures, seeking isolation over crowds and desiring more for the process of being rather than the accolades of vanity. But the artist must exist in two worlds simultaneously in order to have a full life.
“The creative artist thus works on the boundary between attachment and separateness,” writes the researchers, “He sees himself as part of humanity, and he cares about the fate of his products in the future of humanity. Art is his occupation. Through it, he participates in society and is attached to society. To be creative, however, he must maintain some degree of separateness. His work must express and please himself, must be true to his own vision…
“He enjoys solitude more, since he has internal company when other persons are absent. He places less value on possessions, rewards and social approval. He lives more in the present and gains more satisfaction from the process of living—from being rather than doing and having. More in touch with his own feelings, he can be more esthetic, sensual, aware” (p 240-2).
And through my love relationship with Axton I maintain my connection to society. Not only does she keep life real and desirable by asking me to focus my attention and energies on her, she also encourages me and supports me emotionally in my career as a novelist. I consider myself a lucky man. Axton pulls me back towards society when I am slipping far from it, as writers must do at times. But she reminds me, with her smile and delicate speech, that there is more to life than words, dreams, illusions. Love is of a far greater importance.
By age 40 to 45 the man looks back on his decision to Become One’s Own Man and reflects on the success of his choices and his life structure and he searches for some “culminating event” that might make sense of his Dream and his decisions over the last decade or so (p 245), and from there he begins planning the next life structure.
The Seasons of a Man’s Life is one of the most important books a man can read to better understand his life structures, his Dreams and the often mind-boggling choices the man finds himself faced with one day when he wakes up and finds that he is in the wrong room.
For me, I am grateful and lucky (more so from hard work and making careful decisions rather than Lady Chance) to find myself waking up each morning next to an extraordinary woman with such beauty and kindness and love that I feel certain I am, after all these years of searching, finally in the right room where you know that dreams can and do come true.
At age 35 I first learned of this book from my late mentor Joseph Campbell, who mentioned this book in an interview ages ago, and I wished I had discovered these secrets much sooner.
Often I have been plagued with an anxiety that my life choices were my own and I was a lone island in a sea of men. That anxiety, however, is a false and a misguided one. After reading The Seasons of a Man’s Life I found that I was not only not alone but that at certain key stages of my life biological choices were surfacing—the same it does to most men.
The book is a field guide to a man’s life done as a scientific study over the course of two decades, in the sixties and seventies—and the findings then are as relevant and true as they are today. A man’s life consists of four primary cycles, which are:
1. Childhood and Adolescence: age 0-22
2. Early Adulthood: age 17-45
3. Middle Adulthood: age 40-65
4. Late Adulthood: age 60-?
The three major ages for a man’s life to pivot and turn drastically into one direction or another based on that man’s personal choices are age 30, age 35, and age 40. For me, I would include age 25—hence the age I decided to leave America and travel/work in Asia—but for this post I will focus on the most significant ages of 30, 35 and 40.
Age 30 is a very important biological turning point for men. Most men, like myself, somehow come face-to-face with a decision that they also somehow know will shape and reshape their life for many years to come. Even if all is well and going smoothly up until this point, the biological side to the man’s life will rise up and make the man seriously question everything in his life. The study found there are two choices: (a) the man keeps doing what he is doing and accepts the consequences for better or worse; or (b) the man makes a big change and decides to radically change his life.
At the age of 30, I found myself in a toxic marriage with a woman who did not support my writing—even the smallest amount of encouragement seemed alien to her. I was faced, then, with a difficult decision. Either I continued living in a failed marriage with a woman I could never come to love (how could I love someone who did not love me as a writer—the very essence of who I am?) or I could make a big change and start anew. This was not an easy decision, since we had a daughter involved, but it took me another three years to end the marriage and make a full commitment to my writing career, which I began whole-heartedly at the age of 18.
As I read and reflected on this study of a man’s life, I began to see other men around the age of 30 making career decisions that revolved around this age. Jake Gyllenhaal, at the age of 34 in 2015, is one such man. In an Esquire interview he said that at around the age of 30 he decided to focus on serious films and implement an immersion technique to his acting.
This following text comes from the Esquire interview in May, 2015 and expresses my point perfectly:
“Then something tectonic took place. His priorities shifted and his perspective changed. ‘I woke up one day and I wasn’t in the right room,’ he says. ‘It was like a David Byrne song: ‘That’s not my beautiful house. That’s not my beautiful wife.’
“So, he changed his life, the way men sometimes do around 30. He moved from his native Los Angeles to New York and pursued theatre. He chose smaller budget independent movies, with darker, more challenging themes.”
And this kind of life-altering sudden realization was exactly what happened to me at the age of 30. I simply woke up one morning and found myself in the wrong room married to the wrong woman and knew I had to change my life or I would become a living zombie.
And all of this has to do with a man’s Dream and the life structure that either does or does not support that Dream,
“The choice of a mate influences, and is influenced by, the overall character of that structure. One man tries to build a structure in which he can pursue his special dream or vision; he marries a woman who shares that dream and wants to join him on the journey toward its realization.
“Another man betrays his dream: seeking to build a structure that is more acceptable to parents or is ‘safer’ in some inner sense, he marries a woman who will value and support this conservatism. At some later time he may blame her, with much or little justification, for her part in leading him away from his dream” (p 55).
The Age Thirty Transition (p 58) is the process the man goes through to change his first life structure he created in his twenties. During this transition he is establishing a new life structure that will carry him through his thirties. If a failed transition occurs at this age, the new life structure usually has devastating effects to the man’s life and psyche and many suicides often happen before the age of forty, because the man fails to see the life structures beyond that age having any real significance to himself, to his dream, or to humanity.
“During the Age Thirty Transition,” writes the researchers, “the provisional, exploratory quality of the twenties is ending and a man has a sense of greater urgency. Life is becoming more serious, more restrictive, more ‘for real’. He has the feeling: ‘If I want to change my life—if there are things in it that I don’t like, or things missing that I would like to have—this is the time to make a start, for soon it will be too late.’ The Age Thirty Transition provides a ‘second chance’ to create a more satisfactory life structure within early adulthood” (p 85).
The next important age to consider is 35, coming at the end of the Settling Down Period and from this point on to age 40, the man enters what the researchers call “Becoming One’s Own Man”, which contains the “major developmental tasks…to accomplish the goals of the Settling Down enterprise…to speak more strongly with one’s own voice, and to have a greater measure of authority” (p 60).
But this Dream comes with a super-inflated asterisk:
“Those who betray the Dream in their twenties will have to deal later with the consequences. Those who build a life structure around the Dream in early adulthood have a better chance for personal fulfilment, though years of struggle may be required to maintain the commitment and work toward its realization” (p 92).
I can confess to this truth. In my early twenties I formed the Dream of becoming a writer/published author able to work for myself and dedicate a life to writing. Every choice I made since leaving a major bank at the age of 25 involved this question: “Money aside, will this decision make me happy?”
And more often than not the consequences of my decision made me happy, despite having a happiness that included me having to survive hardships and struggles around every turn.
And I see why most people give up on their dreams. To continue chasing a Dream in the face of a pragmatic world putting out more obstacles than helping hands, a man must be filled with a madness that other men fear to see or touch. Just ask Don Quixote.
But it is at this thought I recall Brad Pitt as Achilles answering the small servant boy who at the beginning to the film Troy says he would be too afraid to fight the giant soldier, and Achilles responds, “That's why no one will remember your name.”
It takes this amount of confidence, arrogance and madness to achieve one’s Dream. And most men come up short and put a gun to their head, because they believe their existence means very little to humanity without a Dream to achieve.
The study reveals several men followed over several decades of their lives, but two of these men drastically altered their lives after age 35. One New York executive named “Paul Namson” made millions in business and real estate only to retire to try his hand at writing/publishing full time. He later dabbled in real estate again, buying and selling land down in the Caribbean. He just could not write like he wanted.
By age 45, Namson had not reached the commercial success that he wanted as a novelist, and the researchers offered a reason as to why. They believe it takes at least ten years or more for someone to master their industry/craft. If one takes up writing full time at the age of 35, he can expect little to no result within the first ten years.
The same can be said for the writer beginning at age 20 or 25—one must put in the time, unless you have connections and are the exception. There were writers, however, who made strong impressions early on who later faltered and failed (I can think of David Foster Wallace and his book Infinite Jest off the top of my head—he later killed himself after years of mediocre success following this breakout novel).
The other man in the study was named William Paulsen and after working as a computer operator at “Bowles & White” in Florida for eight years he saw no opportunity for growth. He and his family were living a secure, comfortable life in a big house (p 282). After age 35 he struggled for years with the question of becoming a better man, and later he decided to risk it all for a better title and position with a new company.
At the age of 40, he sold the house, moved to the New York area, where his family lived in a small apartment, found a job working with the space agency working on computer designs for the Apollo missions. A few years later, after a few company changes in the industry, he was jobless, had a serious health condition (likely due to the stress) and his wife was supporting him. He had made a move and failed, and unlike Namson, Paulsen did not have millions stashed away in the bank to fall back on for financial security.
I find this level of biological interaction fascinating—and it seems to act at times as a counteragent to our own well-being. There was no reason why Paulsen needed to make that change, but he took the risk and failed, his family suffering the most from the consequences of his life choice.
And this brings us to “illusions”—a slippery snake that can either protect you with tremendous power or turn on you and strike its poison into your veins with lethal consequences.
“A man’s review of the past goes on in the shadow of the future…Illusions can be tremendously harmful,” writes the researchers, “but they can also inspire works of great nobility and accomplishment. They play a crucial, helpful and hurtful part in the lives of most persons during early adulthood. Some reduction in illusions is now appropriate and beneficial, but it is neither possible nor desirable to overcome all illusions in the Mid-life Transition or even by the end of middle adulthood. Illusion continues to have its place—a mixed blessing, or a mixed curse—all through the life cycle. The best way to avoid illusions is not to want anything very much. And that is hardly a prescription for a full life” (p 192-3).
And this is also how you can easily spot the phonies: those men who jokingly tell you that they never wanted what they got. The famed writer who stands in front of an audience and says he never wanted to be a writer. I call bullshit on that every time.
You never hear of a star basketball player telling a reporter he never wanted to play basketball. Nope. Athletes, unlike many artists with false modesty and false humility, will tell you true. These athletes practiced as a child, worked hard, wanted their dream to come true more than anything—and they ended up being successful. The ones who half-ass it are usually the ones who fail. But every person’s Destiny and Dream is different. You have to want to be the best to be the best.
“A man’s Dream is his personal myth,” explains the researchers, “an imagined drama in which he is the central character, a would-be hero engaged in a noble quest…
“As Goethe said, ‘For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him, he must regard himself as greater than he is…
“But when we say that a man is enacting his myth, or pursuing his Dream, we are making plain that his activity has a far more profound meaning. A myth is a construction; it serves his human needs and it reflects meanings stemming from deeper, often unconscious sources in the personality and in the culture” (p 246-7).
And still creative artists are unique creatures, seeking isolation over crowds and desiring more for the process of being rather than the accolades of vanity. But the artist must exist in two worlds simultaneously in order to have a full life.
“The creative artist thus works on the boundary between attachment and separateness,” writes the researchers, “He sees himself as part of humanity, and he cares about the fate of his products in the future of humanity. Art is his occupation. Through it, he participates in society and is attached to society. To be creative, however, he must maintain some degree of separateness. His work must express and please himself, must be true to his own vision…
“He enjoys solitude more, since he has internal company when other persons are absent. He places less value on possessions, rewards and social approval. He lives more in the present and gains more satisfaction from the process of living—from being rather than doing and having. More in touch with his own feelings, he can be more esthetic, sensual, aware” (p 240-2).
And through my love relationship with Axton I maintain my connection to society. Not only does she keep life real and desirable by asking me to focus my attention and energies on her, she also encourages me and supports me emotionally in my career as a novelist. I consider myself a lucky man. Axton pulls me back towards society when I am slipping far from it, as writers must do at times. But she reminds me, with her smile and delicate speech, that there is more to life than words, dreams, illusions. Love is of a far greater importance.
By age 40 to 45 the man looks back on his decision to Become One’s Own Man and reflects on the success of his choices and his life structure and he searches for some “culminating event” that might make sense of his Dream and his decisions over the last decade or so (p 245), and from there he begins planning the next life structure.
The Seasons of a Man’s Life is one of the most important books a man can read to better understand his life structures, his Dreams and the often mind-boggling choices the man finds himself faced with one day when he wakes up and finds that he is in the wrong room.
For me, I am grateful and lucky (more so from hard work and making careful decisions rather than Lady Chance) to find myself waking up each morning next to an extraordinary woman with such beauty and kindness and love that I feel certain I am, after all these years of searching, finally in the right room where you know that dreams can and do come true.
May 12, 2021
Picked this up in part because Arthur Ashe mentioned it a few times in his autobiography. It’s obviously dated, but an interesting artifact. Though mostly dry and academic, the profiles of those in the study are interesting (and sometimes quite sad).
April 27, 2013
This is a rare and invaluable book on the evolution of our perspectives and desires as we age. This is not a self-help book, instead, it explores commonalities across different development periods to illuminate what we should prepare for. The book studies the lives of 40 men aged in their thirties and forties, all in the New York area, with the sample evenly divided across novelists, biologists, executives and workers, all set in the 1970s. Although this sample is not representative of men, let alone women, nor does it fully examine a man's full life (only up to 45), it still holds some valuable clues to what we all should expect and prepare for in life.
Like seasons in a year, the book demonstrates that we all develop across certain age boundaries with transition periods in between. Every season plays its essential part and no one period is superior. In the early adult transition (17-22) we start to question the world and our place in it and start to form an identity. This early stage is challenging as we make a number of important decisions we are rarely fully equipped for, such as forming a dream, mentor relationships, occupation, and love relationships, however putting off these important choices till we are fully ready can lead to even greater costs over time. In early adulthood (22-28) we focus on the antithetical tasks of avoiding strong commitments and creating a stable life structure (most men are not at this stage adequately prepared for an enduring and intimate marriage commitment). In the age thirty transition (28-33) we reflect on our lives and often push for reform or revolution (mid-life crises; essential because no life structure permits living out all aspects of ourselves, we constantly must trade off and reflect). In the settling down period (33-40) we form a second life structure focused on the more important elements in our lives and on achieving our youthful goals and aspirations (this can result in advancement within a stable life structure, serious failure or decline, breaking out and trying a new life structure, advancement which produces a change in life structure, or an unstable life structure). In the mid-life transition (40-45) we again reassess our life structure and focus more on the neglected parts of ourselves. At around 40 we start to feel older, we are more exposed to personal losses and become more sensitive to our own mortality, resulting in less interest in further success.
The book for me reinforced some important life elements. That it is important to articulate (explore external options and inner preferences) and pursue a dream early in life in order to be satisfied with life's outcomes and path. The longer you wait to understand and pursue your dream / purpose, the greater the distress caused later in life. While a dream is important for providing purpose and direction, it never results in absolute happiness, the key through life is to reduce its excessive power by focusing on the intrinsic value of efforts instead of ambition. No matter what we achieve through life, with each development phase we always seem to start at the bottom of the ladder and aspire for greater goals; we are never satisfied. Being less tyrannized by ambitions, passions and illusions of youth leads to greater life satisfaction. We will always feel old and young at any one time, the key is to integrate both aspects, as well as our past with the present, leveraging their strengths and striving for greater balance. We tend to ignore our mortality and take moments for granted. Life consists of a balance between destruction and creation, we need to acknowledge our own grievances and damage caused to others, address our problems from the past rather than carry them forward, and act more consciously. There is a masculine / feminine side to our personality that we need to more actively acknowledge and balance. We need to also balance the attachment (integration in humanity) and separateness (fosters individual growth and creative adaptation, though can be harmful if carried to extreme) polarity, although separateness is more important later in life in order to reflect.
What perhaps is the greatest message of the book is that as long as life continues, there is always an opportunity for change and growth, it just may get a little harder with time.
Like seasons in a year, the book demonstrates that we all develop across certain age boundaries with transition periods in between. Every season plays its essential part and no one period is superior. In the early adult transition (17-22) we start to question the world and our place in it and start to form an identity. This early stage is challenging as we make a number of important decisions we are rarely fully equipped for, such as forming a dream, mentor relationships, occupation, and love relationships, however putting off these important choices till we are fully ready can lead to even greater costs over time. In early adulthood (22-28) we focus on the antithetical tasks of avoiding strong commitments and creating a stable life structure (most men are not at this stage adequately prepared for an enduring and intimate marriage commitment). In the age thirty transition (28-33) we reflect on our lives and often push for reform or revolution (mid-life crises; essential because no life structure permits living out all aspects of ourselves, we constantly must trade off and reflect). In the settling down period (33-40) we form a second life structure focused on the more important elements in our lives and on achieving our youthful goals and aspirations (this can result in advancement within a stable life structure, serious failure or decline, breaking out and trying a new life structure, advancement which produces a change in life structure, or an unstable life structure). In the mid-life transition (40-45) we again reassess our life structure and focus more on the neglected parts of ourselves. At around 40 we start to feel older, we are more exposed to personal losses and become more sensitive to our own mortality, resulting in less interest in further success.
The book for me reinforced some important life elements. That it is important to articulate (explore external options and inner preferences) and pursue a dream early in life in order to be satisfied with life's outcomes and path. The longer you wait to understand and pursue your dream / purpose, the greater the distress caused later in life. While a dream is important for providing purpose and direction, it never results in absolute happiness, the key through life is to reduce its excessive power by focusing on the intrinsic value of efforts instead of ambition. No matter what we achieve through life, with each development phase we always seem to start at the bottom of the ladder and aspire for greater goals; we are never satisfied. Being less tyrannized by ambitions, passions and illusions of youth leads to greater life satisfaction. We will always feel old and young at any one time, the key is to integrate both aspects, as well as our past with the present, leveraging their strengths and striving for greater balance. We tend to ignore our mortality and take moments for granted. Life consists of a balance between destruction and creation, we need to acknowledge our own grievances and damage caused to others, address our problems from the past rather than carry them forward, and act more consciously. There is a masculine / feminine side to our personality that we need to more actively acknowledge and balance. We need to also balance the attachment (integration in humanity) and separateness (fosters individual growth and creative adaptation, though can be harmful if carried to extreme) polarity, although separateness is more important later in life in order to reflect.
What perhaps is the greatest message of the book is that as long as life continues, there is always an opportunity for change and growth, it just may get a little harder with time.
September 29, 2016
Without fully disagreeing with this research, I'm not buying it that these stages are that universal to every man's life. I don't see all of it represented in myself, for start, but even disregarding that, I still find it hard to agree that this pattern they've ''discovered'' pervades every man's life. I think there are exceptions, and grand ones at that.
I also doubt the timings presented here (if not in general, then in particular), and, contrary to what was said by the author, I think it is possible to skip stages, although I concede that it might not happen often.
In general, though, it is a solid piece of work. It raises some important questions, and has separated out some of the most problematic aspects men face in the course of their lives.
It is worth to mention that they brought out the worrying deficiency and low quality of mentor-protégé relationships in our development, lack of close friendships in the lives of adult men, and the predominance and preoccupation of our media and society with youth and promoting youth, with concurrent abandonment of older heroic figure, and general neglect of providing positive outlet and means of expression as well as occupational and creative freedom for adult men beyond age 40. All things where our society's weak spots lay. Most of this received adequate attention in the book, and was where, I think, it shined its best.
I also doubt the timings presented here (if not in general, then in particular), and, contrary to what was said by the author, I think it is possible to skip stages, although I concede that it might not happen often.
In general, though, it is a solid piece of work. It raises some important questions, and has separated out some of the most problematic aspects men face in the course of their lives.
It is worth to mention that they brought out the worrying deficiency and low quality of mentor-protégé relationships in our development, lack of close friendships in the lives of adult men, and the predominance and preoccupation of our media and society with youth and promoting youth, with concurrent abandonment of older heroic figure, and general neglect of providing positive outlet and means of expression as well as occupational and creative freedom for adult men beyond age 40. All things where our society's weak spots lay. Most of this received adequate attention in the book, and was where, I think, it shined its best.
March 29, 2012
This was interesting and very convincing.
Although I agree with my goodreads friend Elyssa that it would be interesting to see this same study conducted with a younger generation (the subjects of this longitudinal study were mostly born in the 1920s), I found this surprisingly consistent with what I perceive as the stages of development of my contemporaries (and me) and even of my nephews and friends' sons, etc. who are in their 20s and 30s now, and who seem in so many other ways to have grown up in and to be living in such a very different world from me.
Even the fairly narrow age ranges of the development stages the author defines seem to be as applicable to these subjects as they are or were to my age cohort and as they seem to be to men born 20 years before or after me. I would not have thought so.
Although I agree with my goodreads friend Elyssa that it would be interesting to see this same study conducted with a younger generation (the subjects of this longitudinal study were mostly born in the 1920s), I found this surprisingly consistent with what I perceive as the stages of development of my contemporaries (and me) and even of my nephews and friends' sons, etc. who are in their 20s and 30s now, and who seem in so many other ways to have grown up in and to be living in such a very different world from me.
Even the fairly narrow age ranges of the development stages the author defines seem to be as applicable to these subjects as they are or were to my age cohort and as they seem to be to men born 20 years before or after me. I would not have thought so.
October 28, 2015
The reading reminds me of the Nurture Assumption. The topics are not related, the style of writing is similar.
Years ago I watched a movie that reduced peer identity to 1.5 (Moon is Blue?). The idea is if one takes their age and divides it by 1.5, that age and anyone younger is viewed as young. Similarly if one takes their age and multiplies it by 1.5, that age and anyone older is viewed as old. Both are considered outside peer group.
The second half of this book was no fun to read because I'd rather not think about where my career is supposed to be in these middle age years. Overall, some interesting insights that should be taken with a large grain of salt by anyone new to the topic.
Years ago I watched a movie that reduced peer identity to 1.5 (Moon is Blue?). The idea is if one takes their age and divides it by 1.5, that age and anyone younger is viewed as young. Similarly if one takes their age and multiplies it by 1.5, that age and anyone older is viewed as old. Both are considered outside peer group.
The second half of this book was no fun to read because I'd rather not think about where my career is supposed to be in these middle age years. Overall, some interesting insights that should be taken with a large grain of salt by anyone new to the topic.
April 25, 2016
I couldn't finish this book - it's too dated and it's viewpoint is too narrow due to the worldview of the author's time and place.
July 25, 2024
While reading the first few chapters about methodology the word that kept passing through my mind was "stultifying." This book was written before academics realized they could do better by writing commercially successful popular self-help books. I was reading this as a self-help book, so I pressed on, and I'm glad I did.
The book has distinct limitations.
1 - it's a study of 40 people
2 - those people are all men
3 - it was done as a series of interviews over, at most, a decade of life.
However, with that caveat, it's fairly easy to see that the authors are on to something, and the results generalize reasonably well to most (employed) people.
As a woman, I definitely felt there was some limitations extrapolating to myself. In an anthropology book, the author noted that most women don't make advances outside the family until their 50s, when they're done having children. In this book as well, some of the difficulties posed to the men was their wives moving out of the household orbit after primary childrearing was done. It is clear to me that women, especially those who go the housewife route, will have a slightly different trajectory.
That aside, I found this book useful to understanding the pulls and tugs in my own life and those around me, as well as a source of hope for how things might shake out in the future.
The book has distinct limitations.
1 - it's a study of 40 people
2 - those people are all men
3 - it was done as a series of interviews over, at most, a decade of life.
However, with that caveat, it's fairly easy to see that the authors are on to something, and the results generalize reasonably well to most (employed) people.
As a woman, I definitely felt there was some limitations extrapolating to myself. In an anthropology book, the author noted that most women don't make advances outside the family until their 50s, when they're done having children. In this book as well, some of the difficulties posed to the men was their wives moving out of the household orbit after primary childrearing was done. It is clear to me that women, especially those who go the housewife route, will have a slightly different trajectory.
That aside, I found this book useful to understanding the pulls and tugs in my own life and those around me, as well as a source of hope for how things might shake out in the future.
January 3, 2021
The main argument—that adults have developmental tasks that take place in stages alternating between settling and unsettling one's life structure—has basically been absorbed into culture as common sense. The specificity of the ages bothered me, both because it sometimes seemed like fortune cookie logic ("You will ascend a ladder in the next five years") and because it gave short shrift to the influence of circumstances like economic climate and the expectations of different social groups.
The thing I benefited from most, as a psychology newbie, was a useful gloss of other people's ideas: individuation, generativity/stagnation, polarities such as attachment/separateness and description/creation, Jung on the forms and functions of love relationships, etc.
The thing I benefited from most, as a psychology newbie, was a useful gloss of other people's ideas: individuation, generativity/stagnation, polarities such as attachment/separateness and description/creation, Jung on the forms and functions of love relationships, etc.
July 18, 2023
This book was very helpful for me because it gave me a framework/reference for how a man's life can be divided in separate arcs. I both discovered myself in previous arcs but also felt inspired and reliefed by some future development aspects that are ahead of me. I am convinced that many humans/men have to figure this out all by themselves (and this is likely painful at times), and I found it very helpful to have a high level overview of certain stages. I also really liked the reference to ancient scrips/literature that seemed to have similar descriptions.
March 30, 2023
It was a research study that acted as a proof of concept and introduced me to a lot of questions and things to think about. Because it was one of the first studies of its kind, I must admit that they do not have and most likely choose to avoid giving too many conclusions about generalizing life structure. However, I believe it is in this ambiguous nature that the reader can figure out how to apply these concepts to better understand their own life.
June 7, 2020
A good, if somewhat dated look at human male development across the lifecycle. Follow up with study participants who left the area would have been helpful - but of course would not gave altered the basic findings.
December 7, 2017
very good psychological insights of mans life
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June 24, 2022Minuteman. Read years ago, didn't reread.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 27, 2025
I suspect it will be too academic for most laypeople, like me.
August 24, 2011
This book focuses on how our needs, wants, drives and illusions are supported, diverted and even destroyed by the institutions we work at, the relationships we develop/commit to and the family lives we build. The culmulative effect challenges each life period's structure and thus, determnines the tasks that each person must achieve to successfully pass through.
Interesting to find that every (working) person goes thru the same developmental life periods in the same sequence and with very little variance of age. Since the book was written in the 70's, the book's research is culled from the lives of men. From my perspective, these same seasons can be applied to today's working woman as well.
A good read for mid-lifers wondering if anyone else feels this way. My reason for giving it 3 stars is because it is written as a research study and provided a lot of tedious detail to establish scientific cred.
Interesting to find that every (working) person goes thru the same developmental life periods in the same sequence and with very little variance of age. Since the book was written in the 70's, the book's research is culled from the lives of men. From my perspective, these same seasons can be applied to today's working woman as well.
A good read for mid-lifers wondering if anyone else feels this way. My reason for giving it 3 stars is because it is written as a research study and provided a lot of tedious detail to establish scientific cred.
February 26, 2015
The book provided me with an accurate conceptual framework of adult development. It is systematic, straightforward yet deep and insightful. I found its approach of combining between theory and real case studies particularly helpful in apprehending the different facets of adult development.
On a personal level, the book helped me analyse, understand and re-frame my own past development phases, the current one (The age 30 transition) and have insights in what might be my life in the future and how I can prepare myself to it.
It was a pleasure to read it and I'm looking forward to re-read it again and again. No doubt, the book influenced me in many ways and yet others I shall discover as time goes by.
On a personal level, the book helped me analyse, understand and re-frame my own past development phases, the current one (The age 30 transition) and have insights in what might be my life in the future and how I can prepare myself to it.
It was a pleasure to read it and I'm looking forward to re-read it again and again. No doubt, the book influenced me in many ways and yet others I shall discover as time goes by.
June 26, 2014
While I did find some of the writing to be a bit dry and academic, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It put the patterns of my past into perspective, it gave new insights into the periods of growth that I went through, and a glimpse of the road ahead. And it gives tremendous insight into the turbulent period of reassessment that happens in the early-40's transition, which is where I find myself right now. The patterns and phases that were discovered in the study matched my life so far very closely, right down to the timing, specific age and duration of each developmental period. Highly recommended for guys - especially if you're hitting that 40's life reassessment.
August 3, 2016
I remember reading this book distinctly. It was good and hit many of the points I'd been considering about life. In reading it and thinking about my life, I went back to my old "journals" and began typing them. Then, as I read about all of my expoits, I started smoking weed again (I'd stopped back in September, before the school year began) and haven't stopped.
Not much about the book, more about me. But the book did get things going in my mind.
Not much about the book, more about me. But the book did get things going in my mind.
April 7, 2021
I read this book during the transitional period in my own life between Summer and Fall. I could so easily related to everything mentioned in the Spring and Summer seasons of a man's life. If we are lucky enough to make it, we all go through the four seasons of life ... male or female or other. I found the "heads up" to be very helpful and leveraged it with each new experience. Tony McLean Brown, author www.HappyGuidetoaShortLife.com
July 4, 2024
Repetitive and pseudoscientific in its dependence on hard classifications but also genuinely humanistic and interesting. See also the "up" film series. Concept of "life structures" and general map of life to age 30 feels useful and immediate to me. Last half of the book doesn't take in the same way (i am 27 at the time of reading) But a good recommendation from my friend nonetheless. Maybe i hold on to this book, maybe i revisit years and years in the future
August 8, 2008
This book follows the lives of 30+ men through their young adulthood into late adulthood. By asking about their dreams and the watching how their lives unfold, a lot is revealed about how we work. "Follow your bliss," is a nice mantra, but in reality it is much more complex. It is fantastic to see how these men trekked through their dreams.
January 7, 2015
Fantastic read from the viewpoint of developmental psychology & social psychology.
The historical overview of "The Ages of Man" (pgs 325-326) from the perspectives of:Talmud, Confucius, & the Greeks (Solon) are worth the price of the book.
Should be required reading for any man before he hits age 21, and for any gal who wants to be a life-mate for a guy.
The historical overview of "The Ages of Man" (pgs 325-326) from the perspectives of:Talmud, Confucius, & the Greeks (Solon) are worth the price of the book.
Should be required reading for any man before he hits age 21, and for any gal who wants to be a life-mate for a guy.
November 5, 2019
I mostly focused on the parts which relate to my own life, but the whole book is full of invaluable information and advice for all men. I will come back to this one again in the future when I need guidance. Some of the other reviewers are saying the information in this book is dated. No it's not. This kind of information doesn’t get dated. Men are men.
October 18, 2007
I read this in Developmental Psychotherapy class in 1996 when this was still considered relatively "new". I think a lot of the theories about men's development would endure today, but I hope that a new edition is in the works.
October 27, 2007
"Around the age forty transition, it begins to occur to you that if there is anything you really want to do, you had better do it."
December 15, 2007
Rated: B
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November 24, 2009Gerontology, about man's aging
November 8, 2010
Explores and explains the specific periods of personal development through which all human begins must pass and which together form a common pattern underlying all human lives.
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September 3, 2011Call Number: 155.6 LEV
Available.
Available.
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