Life Question 4

Turning Points

Our lives, of course, have their ups and downs. They also have their retreats and stuck places, their creeps and leaps forward. An account of a life of many years would fill volumes, but one way to summarize such a life would be to chart its points of movement -- to consider its turning points. A turning point is a crucial change or shift in a life. "Crucial" implies that this change is likely to influence future events.

Some of our turning points are elected; for example, we decide to get married, or to have a baby, or to get divorced, or to retire. Some turning points are imposed as, for example, when the divorce or retirement is forced upon us. Some turning points are surprises or unforeseen -- for example, the baby that arrives after we have given up trying, a financial windfall, or an illness that is a significant challenge. A nonevent can be a turning point: finding that we are unable to qualify for a certificate or license or that retirement is an impossibility because of financial circumstances.

Although turning points are frequently associated with external events -- for example, a death or birth or change in vocation -- it is the change within ourselves that is important. A seemingly salient event is not a turning point if we remain essentially the same. The essence of a turning point is that we come to see ourselves and our world in a different way. Psychologist Stanley Keleman recalls a significant change within himself arising from the time that his father was ill, in pain and fearful of dying:

This experience was a major event, a turning point, a step in my life that galvanized me out of my childhood into the beginning of my manhood. I had become bigger, older, wiser. The fragility of me, of those around me, and our finiteness was born. I knew something, I thought differently. I felt differently. . . . I became serious. A bit of melancholy stepped into my life.²

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