Cycle-2: Prepare for Future Eventualities
Recap
The Spiral trajectory for has 7 Stages over 2 Cycles, starting in and twice re-entering , which is .
Cycle-1 revealed that financial security, prosperity and ultimately social status rests on . This requires adopting values, which typically means earning a good living. However, to become financially more secure and gain status, additional values need to be incorporated: initially building , then , and finally ).
At the conclusion of this Cycle, your earning potential will be bolstered by your ability to use the worthy reputation you have developed. But little attention has been given thus far to the future with its inevitable challenges and uncertainties.
This Topic considers Cycle-2 which is about protecting your future prosperity and status by preparing for eventualities.
Stage-5: Form Lasting Relationships
Everything in social life depends upon the participation and goodwill of other people. Given an underlying competitiveness in which everyone is busy looking out for themselves, this goodwill cannot be taken for granted. The first requirement to build security into the future therefore involves forming relationships with people whom you can trust and on whose support and loyalty you can depend through thick and thin, and especially in bad times.
The relevant values for genuine relations are to be found in .
Although these relations are developed to support earning security or business dealings, they will feel like friendships. While intimacy is not required, any enduring relationship depends on a minimum of mutual enjoyment in each other's company, an ability to communicate easily and openly about what matters, and a willingness to provide encouragement and respond to wishes and feelings. Some flexible adaptation is always required.
Power-based impulses and anxieties about dependency or vulnerability will naturally interfere with effective closeness.
Limitations of Stage-5
A core group of a few trusted loyal relationships can greatly help with the social side of managing yourself in society and will prove its worth in crises, hard times and disaster situations. However, strong relationships do not in themselves address unsettling changes and emerging opportunities.
Terminating HereStage-6: Analyse via Diverse Viewpoints
The essence of thinking is to be found in the impartial appreciation of diverse viewpoints and a readiness to learn from any source.
In order to stay abreast of changes in your field and in your socio-economic environment, you must be willing to look at issues from different angles—even if some seem alien to you. Orienting to the future involves engaging with ideas in your area of expertise even if they require you to unlearn what you previously knew. New technologies, whatever their benefits, can have a steep learning curve. However, even if you engage consultants to do most of the work, you need to develop a basic grasp of what it is all about to use them well.
Each perspective comes with its own concepts, its own history and its own implications. Because you do not know exactly how any particular perspective will help you or whether it will be relevant to your current challenges, you should read around the subject and debate new ideas in an impartial way with a focus on what will work in practice.
Limitations of Stage-6
It is one thing to analyse and debate, it is something else entirely to commit yourself. Your core group probably expects you to be in touch with emerging developments. But these developments all occur within a broader and impersonal and undefinable socio-physical environment.
Stage-7: Face Socio-economic Realities
It is a truism to say that at all times you should stay attuned to contingencies that could impact on your continuing security and financial well-being. However, facing reality is difficult because it so often contradicts conventional wisdom which tends to complacency and prefers soothing self-delusion. It is simply irrelevant that some realities are unpleasant or would force changes you (and others) would rather not think about. This impersonal and asocial quality is probably why the mentality itself is not so common.
Anything may happen at any time and it is never possible to prepare for all possibilities. But the biggest danger is that risks are staring you in the face while you refuse to notice them. The secret here is to attune to the social forces that drive all change. Your fullest commitment and the potential for success and security will come from flowing with those forces and their implications.
It is possible to deliberately expand your awareness so as to see the biggest picture while still keeping complexity simple when dealing with others. Clarity of vision will allow you to make accurate predictions of impending disruption and the value of specific interventions.
Termination
At this point, you have done and are doing all you can.
With the cumulation of values and principles developed from the 7 modes, your position in the quadrant will be even further down the ellipse. Self-development is no longer an issue and you should be able to in a way that maximizes your societal contribution.
Conclusion
This trajectory demands a great deal of effort and it offers no guarantees.
Your financial position may always be undermined by events over which you have no control, possibly leading to bankruptcy. However, if you have moved around the Spiral and the culture is forgiving, your status will not be irreparably damaged. You will have the experience, knowledge and friends that put you in a good position to re-build your life and become prosperous again.
Originally posted: 20-Jun-2025