Some folks, though, don't experience transitions as joyful steps into the future. I'm thinking of people who move from one town to another, people who are dealing with the end of a marriage or the death of a loved one. Those transitions are more like losses than gains. It's the same way when you lose your job, and even when you retire. He identifies those steps as endings, the neutral zone and beginnings.
Transitions always involve all three.
Endings dominate our thinking when the transition involves a major loss, like a job or a spouse. We all know people who've become so depressed by such a loss that they can hardly function. They don't seem to be themselves, and it's true because they have lost a significant part of their identity. But there is more. Life goes on, healing occurs, and what seemed to be an ending becomes the beginning of a transition to something new.