Every seven years the disposition changes, they say. Let it be a change for the better and for the nobler in your taste... with each succeeding lustre let a new excellence be added. Observe this change so as to aid it...
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
People change over the course of a life whether they intend to or not; the counsel is to make that change deliberate and upward rather than accidental and downward. Roughly every several years, temperament and priorities shift, and you can either let the drift happen to you or steer it, adding a new excellence at each stage instead of merely losing capacities you once had. The renewal often coincides with a change of role or circumstance, which is the natural moment to become a somewhat different and better version of yourself. The point is agency: notice the transitions of a life, and use each one to deliberately upgrade your character and taste, so you arrive at each new decade as more than you were, not less. The original's list of the ages of man as animals is a period flourish left in 1647; the living counsel is the deliberate renewal.
Practice
- Steer the change instead of drifting; you will become different over the years regardless, so make each transition a deliberate upgrade (maxim 238 builds the missing quality).
- Add a new excellence at each stage, rather than only shedding capacities; the aim is to arrive at each decade as more, not less.
- Use the natural transitions, a new role, a new decade, a new circumstance, as the moment to renew character and taste on purpose.
Use this when
- Use this at the thresholds of life and career, where a change of position is the natural occasion to become a better version of yourself.
- Use it against the drift into a lesser self; renewal is available at every stage, but only if you steer it.
Ignore this when
- Don't confuse renewal with chasing novelty for its own sake; the change is toward the nobler, not merely the different (maxim 269 uses novelty without worshipping it).
- Don't cling to an old self past its stage; refusing to renew is its own slow decline.
A picture of it
At fifty, a professional feels the pull to simply coast on the person he already is, letting the years subtract from him one capacity at a time. Instead he treats the decade as a deliberate renewal: he takes up the reflective, mentoring role his earlier drive had no room for, adding a patience and generosity that were not in his thirties. The change of stage becomes a change for the nobler, chosen rather than suffered. He arrives at sixty as more than he was at fifty, not less, because he steered the transition instead of letting it happen to him.
You will change over the years no matter what; steer it upward. Let each stage add an excellence rather than subtract a year.