Give me all the chapters

How do you understand where you’ve been in life and where you’re going? One useful metaphor is the book chapter. We see it all the time. Whenever someone starts a new job, moves to a new city, or gives birth to a child, they usually see it as the beginning of a new chapter.

But going beyond the obvious examples, what if some people have more life chapters than others? And I don’t mean the 81-year-old Vietnam veteran that has experienced more in life than the 18-year-old college freshman. I mean that if you ask people about the chapters of their lives, some are likely to recall more chapters than others who are the same age. Is this interesting, psychologically?

First, let’s define the life chapter, quick and dirty style. Let’s say that a life chapter is a period of time in which one or more experiences produces a change in how you perceive yourself.

As I thought about this, I started to get excited, so I took a couple of minutes to write down as many chapters of my life as I could think of. I recommend you do this too: take out a piece of paper and a pen, or your notes app, and jot down as many chapters as you can in 3-5 minutes. Just a couple of words for each. Don’t think too hard, just write!

If you’re not sure whether a particular period should be a chapter (like starting a particular hobby), just ask yourself: did it change (or has it changed) how you think about yourself in a meaningful way? A lot of my chapters had to do with personal growth or shifting attitudes—for example, I used to identify so much with my sports teams that I couldn’t imagine dating someone who rooted for a rival. (This is no longer true. Michigan State fans are welcome to slide into my DMs.) But your chapters could be more relationship-focused or spiritual in nature.

Take a look at your list. What do you notice? What kind of chapters do you have? Are your chapters defined by goals that you achieved, or experiences that changed the way you think, or attitudes that shaped how you approach the world? If I were to study people’s life chapters for research, I might categorize them like this and see if any interesting patterns emerge.

I feel like a period should last for at least six months for it to count as a chapter—I think it takes at least that long to experience something deeply and learn from it, whether good or bad. But you might feel differently. Are any of your chapters very short?

Maybe chapters get longer as we get older—instead of “my sophomore year” or “the summer when I tried mongolian throat singing,” it becomes “the chapter of my 20s” or “the chapter of raising my kids.” It could be a construal level thing—as we look farther back in the past, we see longer chapters; but in the recent past or the present, we see shorter ones.

I wonder how recalling a lot of chapters could be associated with a person’s sense of identity, or their sense of the passage of time, or the future, or life generally. I wonder what factors are associated with recalling a bunch of chapters—maybe just being adventurous! But it would be fascinating if it’s something else, like individual differences in life history strategy.

But I think that no matter the content of your chapters, having more is better. Life is more interesting that way. So I don’t think you don’t have to travel the world to live a rich life. You just have to try things that expand your mind and challenge how you understand yourself.