The Journey of a Lifetime

Throughout most of human history, a woman typically bore eight children. Yet, due to high infant mortality rates, 30-50% of these children died before reaching adulthood. This meant a mother often endured the grief of losing three to four children over the course of her lifetime.

Compared to today, survival was a relentless struggle. Emotional support from a partner was crucial amidst such frequent loss. Child mortality remained high until age five, after which survival rates improved significantly. Those who survived early childhood often lived into their 50s or 60s. However, the average life expectancy at birth hovered around 30-40 years, primarily due to the high rate of infant and child deaths. By the time you reached this age, you would have just finished raising your four or five surviving children and were likely preparing for the grave.

In this context, the modern expectation of lifelong marriages is anachronistic. Historically, the purpose of marriage was to ensure children survived to a self-sufficient age, typically around 13 years old. Approximately 13-14 years is the minimum evolutionary standard for the length of a relationship raising one child.

Consider the evolutionary basis of the "seven-year itch." The parental responsibilities for a child under seven differ markedly from those for a child aged seven to fourteen. This transition is deeply embedded in our societal structures, as seen in our linguistic distinction of the *"teenage"* years.

Raising a newborn is vastly different from raising a seven-year-old or a fourteen-year-old. Imagine the sleepless nights and constant care a newborn requires, compared to the growing independence and new challenges presented by a seven-year-old who’s starting school and making friends. By fourteen, the child is navigating early adolescence, demanding yet another shift in parental approach.

As parents, our worldview must evolve to meet these new challenges. A seven-year-old no longer needs breast milk; they need guidance and education. A fourteen-year-old seeks autonomy and identity, pushing boundaries. Our perspectives as adults must adapt to these changing needs.

The seven-year relationship milestone reflects an evolutionary strategy to adapt relationships to environmental changes. Evolution's sole concern is reproduction, viewing relationships merely as mechanisms for producing and raising offspring.

While modern humans may live to 80-90 years of age, evolution still influences our personalities, prompting significant changes approximately every seven years. Your personality might have already changed after five years, but after seven, these changes begin to impact your actions, behavior, spirit, character, virtues, beliefs, self-identity, and soul. This cycle reflects evolution's relentless drive to adapt to reproductive and environmental demands, regardless of our extended lifespans.

Modern marriages, however, are now often focused on happiness rather than solely on raising children. This new focus acknowledges that the purpose of marriage has evolved, emphasizing personal fulfillment and emotional connection over the historical imperative of child-rearing.

To map out your spiritual journey, we will use a seven-year timescale to examine the conceptual changes in the characters you have played and the virtues you have exhibited. By abstracting and integrating the differences and similarities between these phases, we can create a conceptual narrative of the journey your soul has taken. We can then project these forwards to create a new mental framework based on different characters your lifestyle enables and look at the virtues required to get there, starting with who you were seven years ago.