'Preposterously outdated' - goodbye to the linear life

I told my first boss that I hated transitions.

“I just want it to be over already. I want to be on to the next part,” my 20something self told him while I signed the zillionth form related to buying my first house.

Oh, young Bridget. She thought if she just checked all the boxes, she could sit back and enjoy everything, satisfied with a job well done.

If you’re in the middle of a life transition, you’ve got lots of company. Author Bruce Feiler conducted 225 interviews with Americans in every U.S. state about their life changes. In his book Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age, he finds that major transitions come at any life stage.

The average person experiences a disruptive event every 12 to 18 months, according to Feiler. One out of every ten of these disruptors becomes what Feiler deems a “lifequake,” or a “forceful burst of change in one’s life that leads to a period of upheaval, transition, and renewal.”

Where was this book when I was wishing I was done with transitions? My life since has been nothing but transitions — changing jobs, companies, careers; getting married and having kids; moving; losing loved ones; and oh yeah, the pandemic that led to my Kitchen Floor Moment, inspiring the Career River.

Feiler outlines how many transitions we can expect to face in our working lives alone: