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

by Meg Jay

80 percent of life’s most defining moments taking place by age thirty-five.

for the most part, those “autobiographically consequential experiences” were not grand gestures or exciting events. They were people their subjects met or jobs they took or phone calls they returned or conversations they had, all with little immediate dramatic effect.

I can’t wait to be liberated from my twenties. • I’d better not still be doing this at thirty.

Lol

There can also be a deep and heart-wrenching sense of regret: discovering they can’t have the careers they now want; knowing it will be difficult to provide for their child as they now wish they could; finding that fertility problems or sheer exhaustion stand in the way of the families they now long for; realizing they will be nearly sixty when their children go to college and maybe seventy at their weddings; recognizing they may never know their own grandchildren.

is figuring out that while we were busy making sure we didn’t miss out on anything, we were setting ourselves up to miss out on some of the most important things of all. It is realizing that doing something later is not automatically the same as doing something better.

twentysomethings are like airplanes, planes just leaving New York City bound for somewhere west. Right after takeoff, a slight change in course is the difference between landing in Alaska or Fiji. Likewise, in our twenties, even a small shift can radically alter where we end up in our thirties and beyond.

Identity capital is our stock of personal assets. It is how we add value to who we are, and it is what we have to show for how we have spent our time.

So unless you are applying to grad schools, yeah, everyone was right, no one cares. Nor do they care if you did the “wrong” major.

The one thing I have learned is that you can’t think your way through life. The only way to figure out what to do is to do—something.

Because Ian didn’t know that twentysomethings who make choices are happier than those who tread water, he kept himself confused.

It is a learned skill to force yourself to articulate your life, your present world or your possibilities for the future.

So while we hear a lot about twentysomethings who just want to have fun before settling down, many are also waiting to commit in hopes of having better outcomes than their parents.

I knew her fear was useful. It meant she was now taking love as seriously as she had always taken work.

She might as well have added my name

“Do you know why it feels the same?” “Because I’m dating my job and it’s an abusive relationship?” “No.” I laughed.

This was giving Celia

Danielle had been avoiding feedback at work because she felt almost terrorized by comments that had come her way. This was not working in her favor. Without concrete information, Danielle was too quick to assume the worst. Positive feedback would give her the opportunity to feel better, and negative feedback would give her the chance to do better.

Our personalities change more during the twentysomething years than at any time before or after.

The way he saw it, he couldn’t join the world until he felt like a man, but he wasn’t going to feel like a man until he joined the world.

If I got caught on a peak in a late-afternoon lightning storm, it wasn’t going to matter whether I meant to get off the mountain sooner or even whether I was a really nice person. Adulthood is sort of like that.

If you are paying attention to your life as a twentysomething, the real glory days are still to come.

The best part about getting older is knowing how your life worked out.