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

by Meg Jay

I told Kate that while most therapists would agree with Socrates that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” a lesser-known quote by American psychologist Sheldon Kopp might be more important here: “The unlived life is not worth examining.”

This is a contradictory and dangerous message. A “thirty-is-the-new-twenty” culture says the twentysomething years don’t matter; yet, with the glamorization of and fixation on the twenties, there is little to remind us that anything else ever will. This causes too many women and men to squander the most transformative years of their adult lives, only to pay the price in decades to come. Too

I am constantly comparing myself to people with much better lives.

she were simply enjoying her postmodern sexual freedom, then why all the secrecy?

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. —Maya Angelou, writer

What are your thoughts on marriage? Do you want to get married or do you envision another form of commitment? What does marriage mean to you? What do you think the differences are between dating and marriage? What are you excited about? What are your fears? What kind of wedding might you like to have? 2. Do I make you a better person? When do I bring out the best in you? 3. Are you religious? Do you regularly—or ever—attend religious services or events? What religion were you raised with? Would you want to raise your children similarly? Would your parents want our children to be raised with a certain religion? 4. How are we going to manage our money? Do you want to combine finances? What if one of us earns more than the other—or has more debt? Is my money your money? Is your money my money? Is my debt your debt? Is your debt my debt? How do you feel about separate bank accounts? What do you spend money on? Do we need to ask each other before making purchases of a particular size? Will we talk about our finances on a weekly or monthly basis, or will one person mostly “handle it”? When will we start saving or investing, and how will we learn about it? Do you want a prenup? 5. Do you want to have kids? If so, how many and at what ages do you imagine having them? Do you see yourself being an older or younger parent? Do you want to start trying to have kids soon following marriage, or do you want to wait awhile? Would you ever want to become a foster parent or adopt a child? 6....

Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward. —Søren Kierkegaard, philosopher The more you use your brain, the more brain you will have to use. —George A. Dorsey, anthropologist

we were onboard: watched movies together in the auditorium, staged a talent show (and, wow, were there some talented folks), stargazed on the top deck, attended evening lectures on the oceans or countries we were moving through, woke up for sunrise yoga, held book clubs (including one for The Defining Decade), screened video “shorts” they made about the trip, played giant games of Twister or Spoons, put on a fashion show to model the clothes they bought around the world, and tutored the “ship kids” (faculty kids, like mine, who were being “homeschooled” at sea).

Remember: Whatever it is you want to change about yourself, now is the easiest time to change it. For many twentysomethings, this starts with putting down your phone.

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. It was about how, as we click our way across the “world wide web,” linking from one article to the next, we are losing the ability to go deep or to give any one subject our sustained attention.

Danielle was right where she needed to be. Twentysomethings who don’t feel anxious and incompetent at work are usually overconfident or underemployed.

In the timeless classic Man’s Search for Meaning, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl describes his time in a Nazi concentration camp.

taught him that our attitudes and reactions are the last of our human freedoms.

After four years of college, students with fixed mindsets were less confident, and the feelings they most associated with school were distress, shame, and upset. Those with growth mindsets performed better in school overall and, at graduation time, they reported feeling confident, determined, enthusiastic, inspired, and strong. As

Real confidence comes from mastery experiences, which are actual, lived moments of success, especially when things seem difficult. Whether we are talking about love or work, the confidence that overrides insecurity comes from experience. There is no other way.

Literally, confidence means “with trust.” Confidence is trusting yourself to get the job done—whether that job is public speaking or sales or teaching or being an assistant—and that trust only comes from having gotten the job done many times before.

Multiple studies from various countries suggest it is the commitments we make to work and to love—and to the world—that trigger the personality maturation so many twentysomethings want and need.

A study that tracked men and women from their early twenties to their later twenties found that of those who remained single—who dated or hooked up but avoided commitments—80 percent were dissatisfied with their dating lives and only 10 percent didn’t wish they had a partner. Being chronically uncoupled may be especially detrimental to men, as those who remained single throughout their twenties experienced a significant dip in their self-esteem near thirty.

I’m thirty-eight years old and there were, like, two things I had in my mind—the way my little son’s hand feels when I hold it and how I didn’t want to leave my wife behind to do it all on her own. What seemed plain to me was that I wasn’t scared of losing my past. I was scared of losing my future. I felt like almost nothing in my life mattered up until just a few years ago. I realized that all the good stuff is still to come. I was so sick and panicked that I might never see my son ride a bike, play soccer, graduate from school, get married, have his own kids. And my career was just getting good.

Now she says a lot of parents come in and say, “Hey, I need to be healthy at least until my kids are off in college. Please be sure I make it that long.” How screwed up is that? What I can’t figure out, and what I feel like I am grieving a little, is why I spent so many years on nothing. So many years doing things and hanging out with people that don’t even rate a memory. For what? I had a good time in my twenties, but did I need to do all that for eight years? Lying there in the MRI, it was like I traded five years of partying or hanging out in coffee shops for five more years I could have had with my son if I’d grown up sooner. Why didn’t someone drop the manners and tell me I was wasting my life?

“There is a big difference between having a life in your thirties and starting a life in your thirties.” I walked over to my desk and got out a clipboard and some paper and a pencil. “I’m making a timeline. Help me fill this in.”

The further away love and work seem, the less we need to think about them, and the less we think about love and work, the further away they feel. I started to sketch out a timeline to bring the future closer and to make Rachel’s thinking more concrete.

A timeline may not be a virtual mirror, but it can help our brains see time for what it is: limited. It can give us a reason to get up in the morning and get going.

Most twentysomethings can’t write the last sentence of their lives, but when pressed, they usually can identify things they want in their thirties or forties or sixties—or things they don’t want—and work backward from there. This is how you have your own multigenerational epic with a happy ending. This is how you live your life in real time.

We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience. —John Dewey, philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

PREFACE: WHAT IS THE DEFINING DECADE? • Research suggests that 80 percent of our most defining moments take place by age thirty-five. What are some defining moments you hope will happen for yourself by that age? • Some readers who are twenty-nine or thirty-two worry that The Defining Decade does not apply to them. Is it ever too late to be intentional, or is “It’s too late for me” an excuse not to take charge of one’s life? INTRODUCTION: REAL TIME • On average, young adults “settle down” later than they used to. What are some benefits and risks of this cultural shift? How might you use this shift—and this time—to better your life to come? And what are some pitfalls that you, personally, would like to avoid? • Consider how the messages in popular culture about one’s twenties intersect with the culture(s) in which you were raised. What do you think your parents and/or those around you expect from you in your twenties? Is this in line, or at odds, with what you want for yourself? WORK: IDENTITY CAPITAL • What are ten pieces of identity capital you have right now? Think about what you have going for yourself or ask a friend to answer this question for you. (Remember that not all identity capital goes on a résumé. Assets or qualities or hobbies or details that stand out about you or make you interesting count too.) What are three pieces of identity capital you would like to earn next? • When you are in your twenties, must every job add to your identity capital? When is it all r...