Intertwined Circles

My latest musings on the “seven ages of man”, or the eight according to my theory as you’ll see below…

Age 1 – You are completely dependent on others. From your birth until around the time you can legally drive a scooter.
Age 2 – You constantly seek greater independence and autonomy. From the time you fly about on less than roadworthy two wheeled contraptions until the age when you have moved out of home, have your own flat, and are paying your own rent or mortgage.
Age 3 – You achieve and enjoy total independence. The roaring hedonistic twenties when with your first job you realize that you actually have more money than you need after having spent the last 3 years living on baked beans on toast at university.
Age 4 – You choose to give up some of that independence and get married. It seems like a sensible idea at the time because whilst having fun is fine, you ultimately believe that two heads are better than one. Sometimes you even think that it will be fun to share fun with someone else – two funs are also better than one.
Age 5 – You start having people who are completely dependent on you. This is obviously the arrival of children phase. Exchanging fun for dirty nappies. An obvious enough choice when you think about it like that.
Age 6 – Just as you have started enjoying small people being dependent on you, they have moved into their own Age 2. It starts with small things such as refusing to hold your hand when crossing the road and quickly deteriorates into a stroppy teenager.
Age 7 – You no longer have people who are dependent on you and you fall back into some mix of Age 3 and Age 4. The exact mix depends on how many genuinely shared interests you and your partner have, the number of childhood friends you’ve managed to keep in touch with despite having had children, or the number of couples who have been thrust upon you just because they have children of the same age over the last fifteen years that you actually like.
Age 8 – You positively seek situations where there are small people in your family in Age 1 in an effort to rediscover the latter phases of Age 5 and the early phases of Age 6. I think I am starting to understand why people seem to be so happy about becoming grandparents (or maybe not, I am sure some will be keen to share their opinions on this posting in due course…)

And here’s the rub – I would content that overall happiness depends more on how you transition between including how easily you accept these transitions, rather than the actual time you spend in each phase itself…..