What Happens When You Think in Decades

Working in tens can change how you think about your past AND your future

Welcome to Caravan, a bi-weekly newsletter where I explore and report on the human experience, mashing science with the unknowable, sharing actionable ideas for designing the life you want.

If you missed my introduction post, or wonder why the heck you’re getting this at all, you can get the skinny here.

Thank you for being here, for reading, and for supporting this special community of writers, readers, creatives and contributors to the world at large. Your attention is important and deeply appreciated.

---

It’s been coming up a lot for me lately, this temporal perception that is the ‘decade.’ A span of ten years in the life—any life, our collective lives. This funny little cultural construct that helps us all make objective (sorta) what is inherently and by definition, not.

I’d already been considering my own recent decade, this year bringing with it a pretty massive anniversary. October will mark ten years since leaving an entire life, and ultimately, an entire me behind. The year I quit my envied-by-many career, sold 95% of my shit and moved from Napa Valley, California back to my point of origin—Ann Arbor, Michigan.

As I started to rewind the years, I remembered a note I had left for myself when packing boxes for what was then a completely unresolved, and wildly irresponsible move. It was 2013, and I was at the cliff’s edge of an entire year of deep emotional and physical trauma. I clearly didn’t know it at the time, but there were a few signs; I felt my own fragility, recognized the dangers of the open ending I was allowing, and marked the moment.

After some digging through various ephemera, remaining (shockingly, uncharacteristically) focused through minefields of memorabilia rabbit holes, I found it. Like a snapshot from the starting line, it marked the beginning of the ten-year ultramarathon that would follow.

Curiosity… attention… percolated a little more via some interesting zingers in my astrology in advance of this new year.* There’s some stuff going on in my chart that has me looking back to what I was starting around 2008/9, particularly in my professional life. Hugely significant, those too, but more on that another time.

Concurrently came the obvious and almost obligatory annual review that, seduced by its potential resolutions or not, comes every January.

It’s a natural time to look back while looking forward; to both appreciate (or lament, often both) where we’ve been while also planning where we setting off to and how we want to get there.

And, AND… a note from our kindergartner’s school came through just last week, reminding us of the upcoming ‘favorite decade day,’ for which all kids/all grades dress up in the style of their preferred, media-driven, categorical summary of how people dressed for ten whole years.

Kinda weird this, but also, we can’t help ourselves. In preparing our strategy, I briefly explained the whole decade thing, to which my five year-old replied, ‘I don’t really understand the concept, Mama.’ Fair enough, my boy.

This should come as zero surprise to any parent, how do I then proceed? By googling ‘fashion by the decade’ of course! We hit the 50s and there was no need to continue. Lincoln has a very healthy relationship with his shadow, and it looks a lot like Marlon Brando in The Wild One.

Where we struggled a little was on this concept of a decade. What’s so special about it really? And why do we seem to so easily categorize ourselves, culturally and in terms of our own individual progression from birth to death, in these neat little stacks of ten? I didn’t do an awesome job explaining in the moment, TBH—I think I said something about big things tending to hang around for that long, and then we moved onto where to find a biker jacket in size 5T.

So, all this to say, I’ve had decades on the mind. And just like that new word you proudly picked up the other day, the one that’s now absolutely frigging everywhere you look, there’s a significance to this socially constructed measure of time that’s getting reinforced for me by a variety of input sources, and in short order.

Uncle. Message received. But questions remain—what’s the deal here, and why is it important??

This all means, for me at least, that there is an as yet fully untapped value in reviewing the longer stretches of road.

As I started to think about where I was ten years ago, what I was doing, what I wasn’t yet, I realized how often I’ve thought about that time in a comfortable, single-dimension kind of way; not unlike just swiping through the photos from that entire year in the span of the few minutes it ultimately takes. Familiar but detached. Interested, but… NOW is screaming at me to get off my damned phone.

But with some intention, of course, encouraged by the onslaught of hints from the universe, I began also digging into how I was feeling at the time, what I was thinking and what my gut was up to, and how the decisions I then made led into an era of one of the most seismic shifts in my life thus far.

This, friends, is my testimony: there is something inexplicably resonant, and helpful, about what happens within the boundaries of ten years.

As I crawled into that many-years-younger skin of mine, I understood in very new ways just how powerful my intention, feelings, thoughts and intuition were in shaping where I am today. We all know our decisions have power, but if someone had told me then, ‘Yeah. All this stuff your heart is breaking apart for right now? It’s all gonna happen. Just give it ten years.’ I might not have done any of it.

And it didn’t happen in six, or even nine.

There are legions of bigger thinkers out there that can address and explore the neuroscience of or the philosophy behind our perception of time as sentient beings. And we’re of course living in an era of constant content bludgeonings on the proper (ie. most optimal) management of that time.**

I’m getting at something a little different here. I’m talking about the reality that is: big things take a long ass time to shake out. But/and/also, they do shake out. And if you’re looping your intention, feelings, thoughts and intuition with your values, those things most important to you, the big things will land and sprout the NEXT big things.

I’m not much for ‘hacks’ as such, but

Tim Denning

brought this up in a powerful way just a few days ago when quoting behavior hackist, Zac Pogrob; he loves, as I do, what Zac says about ‘playing in decades.’ That giving yourself a longer runway allows for greater acceleration, higher heights. It encourages a level of commitment that completely obliterates the zeitgeist of immediate gratification, and to much… and lasting… reward.

There are gazillions of journal prompts, meditations, visioning exercises on the topic, so I’ll spare you any coaching goodies (buuuut, by all means… ask and you shall receive!). What I’d rather, and to the greater benefit of this community, is to hear about your decades.

We’re pretty comfy thinking and talking about what happened in our 20s, what we envision happening in our 60s, but what about those ten years you spent redefining your career while you raised your kid(s)? What about the decade spent in a relationship that started as one thing and then metamorphosed both you and it?

We’re all likely over the shiny bauble that is The Wrap on 2023 (or maybe you weren’t down in the first place), so let’s take a moment to connect to a specific decade over which you’ve experienced tremendous change. I guarantee we’ve all got them.

Now ask yourself, with the intention to gain a deeper appreciation for the ground-shaking power of your decisions:

How was I feeling?

What was I thinking?

What was my gut telling me?

And, How is that decade impacting my life still, and right now?

Wishing you many insights, friends, and looking forward to connecting on whatever you choose to share.

Yours alongside,

🧡

* I follow this stuff with a shake of salt. My curious mind loves to see how the unexplainable manifests, synchronizes… proof of magic. I don’t make decisions based on what the stars and planet are up to, but man, do I love considering the experts’ interpretations of their travels and then watching for the alignments. It’s often pretty uncanny.)

**A tad hyperbolic, perhaps. There’s lots of quality writing on this, and it’s instruction we desperately need. I love anything Cal Newport puts out, but also agree 100% on the inclusions in this top ten list, for the entrepreneur or non.