Week 6-Siebring

Week 6-Early and Middle Adulthood

This week we read chapters 9 and 10 which dealt with early and middle adulthood.  One would think that with most of us at this stage of life these chapters would be a piece of cake to understand and relate.  I will admit there were things that I did not realize that happen at this stage of life and development.  Then there were things that happen in the middle adulthood that I remember doing in the early stage.  The first point I read that I focused on was achieved identity.  I agree that my self is based on my effort and commitment.  I feel if I do not put forth good effort into anything then I am not happy with myself.  I was very interested in the effect of lifestyle on health.  I knew that obesity has become huge issue and poor diet and nutrition is to partly to blame.  I will be the first to say that I did not have the best diet growing up and in turn let myself become overweight.  I would agree with the book when it says at it becomes harder to lose weight in the middle adulthood.  I think my body has been in middle adulthood for awhile because it has been hard to lose weight for many years.  The reading also talks about social development and the importance in early adulthood.  I feel it is really important because a lot of your long-term friends are met in college and early adulthood.  This is also where we develop our own personality based our own behavior.  I remember this is the time my personality and decisions were made by how I lived my life and not by how I was raised.  The validation section was interesting to me because right now my fiancée and I are seeing a counselor and we were just talking about validation.    We have not validating each other’s feelings lately.  It was nice to read this at this moment.  It has helped. 

Next, we moved on to the middle adulthood and I started realizing I am moving more into middle adulthood.  The hearing loss section hit close to home for me.  I have recently realized it has been harder for me to hear certain things.  I can admit has been the use of earbuds for many years.  I usually had the volume up too loud also.  I feel I am lucky because I do not think my intelligence has diminished much yet.  I think that my creativity has been the key of me retaining intelligence.  I have been creative for years so I think that is why it has helped.  I think the idea of me going back to school to become a teacher is a fine example of a midlife transition.  I really have not felt satisfied with my life professionally for the last few years.  I also do not feel that I have made much a difference so far so need a change.  The final section that I enjoyed reading and related to was the coping with stress section.  Like the reading displays on page 250, while adults have more control over their lives they experience more stress overload.  I have a lot of things causing stress and I have problems sometimes to cope with it in a positive way.  I just know even though I am in adulthood there is a lot I need to still learn about.