Life in Cycles: Growth, Change, and Identity

Life seems to move in cycles.

At least, mine does.

I do not know if that is a universal truth, a psychological pattern, a sociological pattern, or just the way I have learned to read the map of my own life. But when I look back, I can see it. Careers change. Relationships change. Communities change. Hobbies burn bright for a few years and then fade into the background. A life direction that once felt solid suddenly begins to feel like an old coat that no longer fits.

For me, the number that keeps showing up is seven.

Not exactly seven, not perfectly seven, not like some cosmic alarm clock goes off and says, “Right then, Kevin, time to tear everything apart again.” But close enough that I notice it.

Career paths. Personal choices. Marriage. Work. Pagan community. Hobbies. Identity. Purpose. The things I have thrown myself into often seem to last for a season of years, usually somewhere around five to seven, and then something changes. Sometimes I choose the change. Sometimes life chooses it for me. Sometimes I walk away. Sometimes the floor drops out.

So the question becomes: is that normal?

I think the answer is yes, but with a warning attached.

It is normal for life to move in chapters. It is normal for people to change careers, change social circles, change beliefs, change priorities, and change the way they understand themselves. Psychology does not really say that people become a brand-new person every seven years. That is too neat. Too tidy. Human beings are messier than that.

But psychology does say that adulthood is not one fixed state.

We do not reach twenty-five, pick a life, and then simply live inside it unchanged until the end. Adult development continues. People reevaluate who they are, what they value, what they are capable of, what they regret, and what they still want to build. The self is not static. It is revised.

That does not mean every revision is pleasant.

Sometimes a life cycle feels like growth. Sometimes it feels like boredom. Sometimes it feels like failure. Sometimes it feels like looking around and realizing that the thing you once fought so hard to build no longer gives back what it used to give.

Career theory says something similar. A career is not just a job title. It is a life role. It is tied to identity, competence, usefulness, security, and belonging. When the work changes, the self changes with it. Or maybe the self changes first, and the work can no longer hold the person you have become.

That might explain why one person can move through several working lives and still be the same person underneath. The jobs change. The setting changes. The uniform changes. But the deeper question remains: where do I belong, and what am I here to do?

Sociology adds another layer.

It says that life is not just personal choice. Our lives are shaped by timing, economy, relationships, family roles, health, opportunity, loss, geography, social class, and the institutions around us. We like to tell ourselves that we are fully in control, but we are not. We make choices, yes, but we make them inside conditions we did not entirely create.

That matters.

Because when I look back at my own life, I can see choices, but I can also see pressure. I can see decisions I made, but I can also see circumstances that pushed me toward those decisions. Careers did not simply change because I became bored. Personal life did not simply change because I was restless. Communities did not simply fade because I stopped caring.

Sometimes the environment changes.

Sometimes the role changes.

Sometimes the person changes.

Sometimes all three happen at once.

That is where the idea of cycles starts to make sense to me.

A cycle is not necessarily a failure. A cycle can be a period of investment, learning, exhaustion, disillusionment, release, and rebuilding. We enter something. We give ourselves to it. We become good at it. We become known through it. Then, over time, the meaning shifts. What once fed us begins to drain us. What once felt like identity begins to feel like confinement.

Then comes the uncomfortable part.

The in-between.

That strange space where the old thing is no longer alive, but the new thing has not yet shown itself clearly. That is the place where a person can start wondering, “Is this me? Is this normal? Am I unstable? Why do I keep changing my life?”

Maybe the better question is not, “Why do I keep changing?”

Maybe the better question is, “What keeps asking to be rebuilt?”

Because that is the part I keep coming back to.

I have changed careers several times. I have changed life roles. I have been married. I have been deeply involved in pagan spaces. I have taken up hobbies and let them die off. I have built things, lost things, walked away from things, and been pushed out of things. At first glance, that can look scattered.

But maybe it is not scattered.

Maybe it is a life trying to find its proper shape.

Maybe some people are not built for one long straight road. Maybe some people live more like forests. Growth rings. Fire scars. Deadfall. New shoots. Old roots under new ground.

That does not mean every ending is sacred. Some endings are just painful. Some are unfair. Some are avoidable. Some are the result of bad choices, bad systems, bad timing, or bad people. We do not need to romanticize collapse.

But we also do not need to treat every change as proof that something is wrong with us.

There is a hard truth here: sometimes a cycle ends because we outgrow it. Sometimes it ends because it breaks. Sometimes it ends because we finally stop pretending it still fits.

And then we are left with the work.

Not the dramatic work. Not the movie version. Not the grand reinvention where everything suddenly makes sense.

The actual work.

Noticing the pattern. Asking what repeated. Asking what changed. Asking what we carried forward. Asking what we keep trying to build in different forms.

Because maybe that is the real thread.

Not the job.

Not the marriage.

Not the hobby.

Not the community.

Not even the label.

The thread is the self underneath all of it, trying to survive long enough to become honest.

So, is it normal for life to move in cycles?

Yes, I think it is.

Maybe not for everyone in the same way. Maybe not always in seven-year blocks. Maybe not in a pattern clean enough to put on a chart. But people do change. Lives do turn. Roles do expire. Meaning does shift. The person who entered one chapter is rarely the exact same person who leaves it.

The danger is thinking that because a cycle ended, it meant the cycle was worthless.

I do not believe that anymore.

Some things are meant to last a lifetime. Some things are meant to teach us for a season. Some things are meant to burn bright and go out. Some things are meant to fall away so we can finally see what was standing behind them.

Maybe that is where I am now.

Not broken.

Not finished.

Not starting from nothing.

Just standing at the edge of another turn, looking back at the pattern, and trying to understand what it has been teaching me all along.

Godspeed.