The life journey exercise

With life, as with most subjects, having a big-picture perspective is helpful. While each individual lifetime could be quite different, it turns out that most of us have quite a lot in common. Therefore, it's worthwhile to reference a typical life arc when assessing our own, as this would help us to plan for what the future might bring.

Ray Dalio recently shared a tool/process that serves this purpose well; he breaks a typical life into three distinct stages and a checklist of common milestones that most people encounter. I thought I had led quite an unconventional life thus far, and was quite surprised to find that I can check nearly all of the boxes in the first half of the typical life arc shown below.

In this post, I'll share my reflections on my own life arc, and also offer some perspective and advice for you, who might be at an earlier stage.

A midlife situation

From the above diagram, it's simple to see where I stand - I'm about halfway through the second stage. I'm married, I had my first child, and I'm preparing to buy a residence in Shanghai.

The future could be grim

I'm 38 this year and according to the typical life arc, it seems that I'll hit some rough patches ahead. According to Ray, "The late and last part of this second phase period typically takes place around ages 40 to 55 and is reported to be one of the least happy phases of life on average." During this period, we worry about our health, raising our child(ren), succeeding at our jobs, taking care of our aging parents, and possibly doubting whether our life is all we dreamed it would be.

The checklist foretells some unhappy milestones: hit rock bottom; lose a lot of money; get divorced; have a serious health scare; parents die. This is particularly unsettling because I've essentially gone through all the milestones that had come before, so it seems naive that I won't have to face these negative ones that are yet to take place.

It's not all bad though. There's "achieve financial security" to look forward to, as well as retirement and (hopefully) grandchildren.

Accelerate the good and avoid the bad

Let's not be typical. What if we could achieve financial security and retire before we reach the end of the second stage? What if we could prepare for the potential bad stuff and avoid them?

I don't have any concrete answers on how to achieve the above. That said, I've thought hard about this and have arrived at some important points:

• Face life with a good partner. Prioritize relationships with family and close friends, because when things get bad, they're what will keep us afloat.
• Choose freedom over lifestyle. Make financial independence a core medium-term goal. I'm probably a bit too late to achieve it by age 40, but 45 is still possible.
• Lead a healthy lifestyle. Without good health, nothing else matters.

None of the above is terribly surprising, but deliberately writing out these points puts everything in perspective. Strong relationships, financial security, and good health will be more important than ever in the challenging 1-2 decades ahead.

In my case, it's clear that I've been ignoring my health for a few years now. This needs to change. To strengthen my commitment to taking the first step as soon as possible, one of my upcoming blog posts this week will be on my health goals for the remainder of this year and how I plan to achieve them.

Some advice

The life journey exercise is a valuable tool; I encourage everyone to use it to assess their life arcs thus far and compare it to the typical arc. Reflect and plan for what's coming to have better results. In particular, for readers of this post who are substantially younger than me and are at or near the beginning of your second life phase, I have two thoughts:

1. The second phase is very different from the first. You have a lot of freedom, especially in the early years of this period (your early 20's), and it will probably feel strange at first. Rather than follow a path that's set by others, you can choose your own way.
2. There's a fine line between healthy self-directed exploration that's made possible by the abundance of freedom in the early second phase, and unproductive or even harmful pursuits resulting from that same freedom.

I think planning for the medium-term (approximately the next 10 years) is quite valuable. Talk to people who have gone through the milestones you're likely to encounter soon. Set financial goals and give yourself a detailed timeline for achieving them, as they will enable key positive milestones later such as starting a family, buying a house, and retirement.

Everything eventually passes. If you're in a tough situation now or don't know what to do, focus on the things you can change and let time minimize the rest. To repeat my earlier point, the necessary (but perhaps not sufficient) components of a good life are strong relationships, financial security, and good health. Strive for and nurture them, as they're mostly within our control.