Macbeth has many examples where characters get to select either temporal way or transcendental way out of the situations they get in. Choosing the temporal way usually give them a short-time happiness, success even transcendental values like honoring and respecting from other people. But when they get old, having lost all the power, they can no longer get a temporal success and happiness--only transcendental values last forever. Then they realize that they no longer have anything transcendental left, they start to question their life and their mistakes.
Macbeth would be one of the characters who fell into the same miserable situation. In act V, scene iii, Macbeth realizes that he spent all of his life trying to get temporal successes and honoring that he did not think about the future--when he gets old enough but does not have anything left: "...this push will cheer me ever, or disseat me now.
Lady Macbeth by George Cattermole.
Macduff (Macbeth)
Macbeth vs Young SiwardI have lived long enough: my way of life is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf; and that which should accompany old age, as honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have...". He realizes how important permanent honor, not the honor he got earlier in his life just because he was the king but the one you get when you do good thing in your life--which makes you noble.
Macbeth also realizes the difference between a life lived for transcendental reasons and for temporal reasons: "Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by and idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". (V, v) Because he was so desirous for temporal success--to be the king and live safely,