Life Patterns - Do They Repeat Over Generations?

Humans like to look for patterns.  We like to group things.  All the oranges go in one bin.  All the potatoes in another.  If we find something that works for us, we'll tend to buy that product again or do that thing again.  

Thus we live.

Repeating Pattern in Nature

By the time we are old enough to retire, we can look back over our lives and see our patterns.

Me?  I can see that over my lifetime I have tended to stay in bad situations too long.  I stubbornly hang on until something really dire happens that forces me to make major changes.  It's a stay/stay/stay/leave pattern. It is a pattern that I need to change.

Having recognized this pattern in my life, I started thinking, "Why do I do that?"  Is it nature or nurture?  So I did some research and found articles like, DNA carries traces of past events meaning poor lifestyle can affect future generations and Grandma's Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes, and books like Inheritance: How Our Genes Change Our Lives--and Our Lives Change Our Genes.

Then I was reminded of these Bible verses (King James Version of the Christian Bible):

Exodus 34:7: ...visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation...

Numbers 14:18: ...visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation...

Deuteronomy 5:9: ...visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation...

What if these verses were literal???  What if our ancestors' thoughts, feelings, actions, and experiences really do affect us????  

What if we doom our children and grandchildren to repeat certain life patterns???

Now.  That is frightening.

I fear I may have doomed my poor sons and granddaughters.  -sigh-

So...I decided to try to look at my ancestors' lives to see if I can figure out their patterns. 

Those ancestors are all dead now, of course, so I can't ask them.  I must rely on family stories and whatever recorded incidents I can find to figure out their life patterns.  I figure I'll start with my parents because I remember them best, and then I'll move backwards from there.  

Here's what I think:

Mother:  The most prominent pattern of Mama's life was love/loss/loss love/loss/loss.  It seems there were two bad things that happened for every good in her life.  Yet she stayed strong and never gave up.  Her pattern would simply keep repeating.

Father:  The most prominent pattern of my father's life was rags/riches rags/riches rags/riches as far as I can tell.  He was highly intelligent and he didn't mind taking risks, which gave him many things until the next risk took it all away.

Come to think of it, my own life has been pretty much a riches to rags to riches to rags kinda story.  Hmm...something to think about....

I'll have to do more thinking and more research to go back farther than that right now, but I'm wondering if some ancestors' patterns are being repeated in the family?   

Actually, I do know for a fact that at least two ancestors on my paternal grandmother's side of the family had the rags/riches pattern in their lives.

Fascinating.

Can you see patterns in your own families?  Do they repeat?   Now I'm really curious....  How do you break the patterns?