Title:  Understanding the Patterns of Your Life: Take Charge of Your Destiny

Author: George Pan Kouloukis

Genre: Self Help, Personal Transformation

This book explores a remarkable theory—that all human lives on the planet are locked into good and bad seasons which rotate every 16 to 17 years, transitioning on the same year worldwide. The author examines 22 famous people from the 1400s to present day to see which sort of seasons they enjoyed, when, and how their seasons impacted their lives and the world.

The author is quite candid that more investigation is needed, but he does make attempts to establish the worldwide nature of these cycles. Thus, his representative sample includes persons from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America, and he notes that not everyone’s good season will look the same. He feels that a good season will be marked by successes in the most valued area for that person, and thus, everyone’s idea of a good season will not the same.

He also notes that some may be in a good season while others are in a bad season, and that even bad seasons may have occasional high points (Indian summers, he calls them), while other good seasons can have spring or summer storms.

The book could use a little more editorial polish in places, and it would’ve been nice to have a broader sample, with people from South America and those who were truly “ordinary” being included through studies of diaries, biographies, or even online polls. His “ordinary” person was Josephine, the wife of Napoleon, and while it’s true that she was ordinary before and after her marriage, she was famous for a time and would’ve had more direct contact with other famous persons than most and might’ve been influenced accordingly.

At times, the author’s methods came across as rather unscientific and somewhat poorly defined. Some people’s good seasons helped them to the point where nothing seemed to be able to stand against them, while, for others, it wasn’t time for a particular success and the first attempt failed. Thus, it seemed as if the only real criteria was the defined 16 or 17 year period and where one was in the sequence of things—if one’s last season had been good, the next must be bad no matter how many successes and miracles one enjoyed.

The best part of the book was undoubtedly the biographies, with each section being based on another work and references being provided so curious readers could find out more, but, again, it would’ve been nice to have a new, radical theory grounded in more than a single biography for each sample person.

Educational and intriguing, this work is thought-provoking and original. Readers wanting to look at their life in a new way, even if just for a sitting, will enjoy this book. It’s confident yet encouraging, drawing all sorts of useful morals from the alternating good and bad seasons, and the author’s way of thinking is powerfully contagious.

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