How can I understand my life better by looking at historical patterns and cycles?

You know, Laozi noticed that everything moves in cycles—seasons turn, empires rise and fade, and your own patterns repeat too. The trick isn't to fight the pattern or demand you stay constant. It's to recognize where you are in the cycle and what that season actually calls for. When you look back at your own life, you'll find the same. Maybe you've cycled through ambitious phases and quiet phases. Maybe your relationships follow a rhythm you hadn't named before. Start by writing down five turning points in your life—not as triumph narratives, but as moments when something shifted. What was the season before? What came after? You'll begin to see that some of your struggles weren't failures—they were natural movements, like winter's rest. This isn't fatalism. It's permission to stop fighting your own nature. Once you see the pattern, you can work with it instead of against it. That's where real change becomes possible, without the exhausting resistance.