The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now

by Meg Jay

Make yourself interesting. Make yourself relevant. Do your homework so you know precisely what you want or need. Then, respectfully, ask for it.

Shoulds can masquerade as high standards or lofty goals, but they are not the same. Goals direct us from the inside, but shoulds are paralyzing judgments from the outside.

Sometimes making choices feels like planning for my life in a way that seems boring. Sometimes making choices to pursue things that seem like good fits, or that match my interests, seems boring simply because it makes sense. I find myself wanting to go off in an unexpected direction—Arabic! Cambodia! I know this is a sort of crazy impulse. I know that the way to live a good life is to pursue things that are not only interesting to you but that make sense.

We become what we hear and see and do every day. We don’t become what we don’t hear and see and do every day. In neuroscience, this is known as “survival of the busiest.”

As we age, we feel less like leaves and more like trees. We have roots that ground us and sturdy trunks that may sway, but don’t break, in the wind. The wind that blows by can be more serious. “You’re fired!” is much scarier when you have a mortgage. The things we do wrong at work are no longer typos but may be losing a $500,000 account or releasing software that crashes the company website for a day. But older adults—and even twentysomethings who work at it—can be rooted in the confidence that problems can be solved, or at least survived.