Speakers:
Clint Murphy 00:10
Your life has seasons. When you’re in them, you often don’t see them. As you age and look back, you start to gain perspective. The benefit is certain phases get repeated. So if you miss them the first time, you get a second chance.
Clint Murphy 00:28
For most of the seasons, you’re an active participant the first time and a bystander, or less active participant the second time.
Clint Murphy 00:36
Until the final season, death, where you’re both a bystander, and then in the end, a participant.
Clint Murphy 00:42
Let’s take a journey through the seasons together. The first season that I see is formation. It’s the first 10 years of your life. Unfortunately, you don’t necessarily remember much of it.
Clint Murphy 00:55
It’s the season that I think creates your hardware, your sub conscious hardwiring that drives your behavior, what you’re not even aware of. It’s where one of my favorite quotes comes from Carl Jung said, “until we make our unconscious conscious, we will forever be led by it and call it fate. Carl was talking about your hard wiring from your early formative years. Your character starts to get formed at this point in time. It’s molded by family environment and early experiences.
Clint Murphy 01:35
Which brings us to adolescence. This is where most of us start to work on what I call our software. It’s the stories we tell ourselves about what we can do, our capabilities and our limits. We start to set the foundation of our future life with friends, early jobs, high school relationships, and the start of college.
Clint Murphy 01:57
These first two stages are fun. For most of us, our caregivers and parents are the ones who have all the worries and the world’s cares while we can live or you can live in a relaxed state focused on your life and desires without worrying about crazy things like rent, inflation, food costs, having a career, or the impact of global warming.
Clint Murphy 02:21
Then you become an early adult. Well, life changes fast, all of a sudden you’re out of the nest. It is like one of those videos where the mother bird just kicks the bird right out of the nest. Fly or die little bird, fly or die. You’re wrapping up college, starting your career and investing in your relationships through most of your 20s.
Clint Murphy 02:42
For my boys, I want this to be a decade in which they really explore the world in themselves rather than going straight through college into a career. Because once you’re in, it’s hard to get out and explore the world. I want them to take that opportunity in this season to get out and enjoy what the world has to offer.
Clint Murphy 03:02
Then it’s wedding season. I mean, you know what I’m talking about. The wedding season is getting later each generation but for many, it will still be your late 20s and early to mid 30s. It feels like every summer is a wedding summer. You have multiple friends getting married each month, and you’re wondering how you’ll ever afford another tuxedo rental or bridesmaid dress.
Clint Murphy 03:26
But take a step back and think about those weddings. Have you ever noticed smiles on the faces of grandparents. When you’ve been through the funeral season and you’re in the season of death. Seeing your next generation getting married and having children is one of the most incredible things you’ll appreciate. You’re seeing youth and happiness, not death and decay. So next time you think of skipping a wedding. Keep reading for the seasons of the second half to realize why you want to enjoy the seasons while you can.
Clint Murphy 03:58
Next it’s baby season. We felt like we had our children late. My wife created a 10 year plan when we were 20 that would culminate in our first child and she was accurate to within months. She’s pretty crazy that way. We had our first son at 30 and our second son at 33.
Clint Murphy 04:12
Not long after, our friends started to have babies as well. It felt like we knew people having babies for the next 10 plus years. A beautiful season and perhaps my favorite of them all. There’s something about bringing new life into this world that hasn’t been held back by everything we experience and it’s just pure joy and that is the season that I love the most.
Clint Murphy 04:33
Though it’s like they say, the days go by slowly and the years go by fast. It’s a season I missed too much of with my children, which brings us next to the funeral season. It’s a little bit sad that you kind of go straight from baby season to funeral season and it’s a hard season.
Clint Murphy 04:50
It makes this conversation the hardest one I’ve ever recorded. A couple of years ago I was taking a teacher certification on mindfulness and meditation and one of the modules was on grief and loss and I couldn’t relate to it yet.
Clint Murphy 05:03
About a year ago, I entered what I’m referencing is the funeral season. I lost my uncle, my godfather shortly after that session on grief when I felt like I couldn’t relate. It was sudden and came out of nowhere and hit us all hard and opened our eyes to what was coming. Last year, I lost a colleague at work who passed far too early from cancer. From the time she found out that she had cancer until she passed away, it was under three months.
Clint Murphy 05:28
And then a month later, it hit home even harder. My father in law had a heart attack had passed away. He was 78, healthy and fit. If anyone would beat the average, we thought it was going to be him. He was such a big part of our life. And he had been through all of the seasons that I’m talking about beside, my wife and I. It hurts and it’s going to continue to hurt.
Clint Murphy 05:49
Once you enter this season, it ends when you’re on the other side. And there’s a lot of family that you’ll see go through it. Uncles, aunts, grandparents, once it starts, it keeps going.
Clint Murphy 06:02
That brings us to the second half: grandparents. It’s a beautiful season, you’ve hopefully achieved your goals in life and get to step back. Let’s take my mother and father in law’s example. When they entered the second half, they retired and sold their family restaurant right when my wife and I returned to Vancouver and had our children and over the last 16 years, they were able to watch us and our children go through the seasons. They had the opportunity to be primary caregivers, provide daycare, after school care, come on family vacations with us around the world and live beside us for much of that time. It was a time that they got to experience their children and their grandchildren in a way that they could never enjoy their own children.
Clint Murphy 06:45
Often as parents, we set the rules and boundaries and are much more disciplined with our own children. When you’re a grandparent, you’re mellower, calmer, and much happier to let your grandkids simply be themselves without trying to dictate their future. To me, it’s absolutely beautiful and I look forward to enjoying it someday if my boys decide to have kids.
Clint Murphy 07:08
This is it – the final season death. The longer you live, the more you see in that season. The friends, people around you start to disappear each year. They get sick and pass away.
Clint Murphy 07:18
Eventually it comes for you. It comes for all of us, my friends. It’s why I say enjoy the early seasons as much as you can. And always remember the fact that death is coming for us.
Clint Murphy 07:28
The stoics called it Memento Mori, “remember I must die” because the fact that we’re going to die and it is certain, we are going to die doesn’t mean you should live life less in fear of death. It means you should live every single day to the fullest possible extent you can because death is going to come and you want to have achieved your goals, your desires, your bucket lists when it gets here.
Clint Murphy 07:55
I want to thank all of you for joining me on this journey through life’s seasons and for reading what I write, for listening to what I share on the podcast or on YouTube. I appreciate you joining me on my life journey.
Clint Murphy 08:09
And remember, each season has its own beauty and lesson. Embrace them, learn from them and cherish the moment. Until next time.
Clint Murphy 08:22
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