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

by Meg Jay

An interesting life wasn’t going to come from resisting these choices, it was going to come from making these choices.

One thing this has taught me is that a good story goes further in the twentysomething years than perhaps at any other time in life. College is done and résumés are fledgling, so the personal narrative is one of the few things currently under our control. As a twentysomething, life is still more about potential than proof. Those who can tell a good story about who they are and what they think they want leap over those who can’t.

If the first step in establishing a professional identity is claiming our interests and talents, then the next step is claiming a story about our interests and talents, a narrative we can take with us to interviews and coffee dates.

the first step in establishing a professional identity is claiming our interests and talents, then the next step is claiming a story about our interests and talents, a narrative we can take with us to interviews and coffee dates.

No matter what company or program someone applies to, a sort of game goes on. Interviewers want to hear a reasonable story about the past, present, and future. How does what you did before relate to what you want to do now, and how might that get you to what you want to do next?

Life does not need to be linear but it does, as this executive said, need to make sense.

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.

This is how it’s done. This is how it starts. Claiming a career or getting a good job isn’t the end. It’s the beginning. And, then, there is still a lot more to know and a lot more to do.

What this means is that, if “thirty is the new twenty” in terms of when we find our partners, then your twenties are your best chance to get in front of what David Brooks called “life’s most important decision.”

Yet, one of the key messages of this book is that doing something later is not necessarily the same as doing something better.

When, then, is the time to really think about partnership? Spoiler alert: your twenties.

Let me be clear: There is no magic age to partner up. This chapter is not an argument for marrying earlier or later or even at all. It is a case for taking yourself and your relationships seriously in your twenties so that you might learn something along the way and make better choices as you go.

So many of my twentysomething clients either don’t take their relationships seriously or don’t think they are allowed to. Then somewhere around thirty, getting married or finding a partner suddenly seems pressing.

The chapters ahead are about twentysomething men and women not settling—not settling for spending their twenties on no-criteria or low-criteria relationships that likely have little hope or intention of succeeding. These chapters are about not waiting to get picky until you are in your thirties and the save-the-dates start pouring in. They are about being choosy about the right things when you can still think clearly about claiming your life. Besides, like with work, good relationships don’t just appear when we’re ready. It may take a few thoughtful tries before we know what love and commitment really are.

Being young means, as a colleague once put it, “that you haven’t completely screwed up your life yet.”

For a host of reasons, both social and developmental, early adversities are often kept secret and are not spoken about until one’s twenties. Then, just when a twentysomething is ready to talk about what has not gone so well, they show up in a therapist’s office where the clinician may be too distracted by what has. Almost effortlessly, YAVIS clients seem to have friends and accolades and talents and successes. Yet, for many of these clients, life has not been as easy as they make it look, and this is a discrepancy that even many therapists cannot hold.

“Nobody knows who I am… except for you,” Emma often lamented. I encouraged her to let some other people in. “If I’m the only person who knows you,” I countered, “then I am not doing my job.”

There is something scary about picking your family. It’s not romantic. It means you aren’t just waiting for your soul mate to arrive. It means you know you are making decisions that will affect the rest of your life. It means you are thinking about the fact that your relationship needs to work not only in the here-and-now but also in the there-and-then. It means you are the one who is putting together the family about which your own children—if you have them—will someday say, “You can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends.”

But what people say they are “looking for,” as Mashable puts it, often has something to do with what they think they can get—or what they think they deserve.

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned as a psychotherapist is this: The most difficult thing to cure is the patient’s attempt at self-cure.

says ‘A raft is a good thing to have when you’re crossing a river. But when you get to the other side, put it down.’”

Every problem was once a solution.”

There is some interesting research on what is called “self-perceived mate value,” which is how we think about our own worth to potential partners out there. In

Although the stories I have heard about dating down are different, they all had one thing in common: They originated in old conversations and experiences, and so they could change only through new conversations and new experiences. Things get better only when we let new and better people in. Things get better when we let new and better people care about us or love us, or when we at least listen to—and believe—what they have to say.

We spent even more sessions helping her shift from being wanted to wanting. Cathy had never thought about what she wanted or needed in a partner. She never thought she could do the wanting. She never thought she could take charge of her love life.

The greater the setup costs, the less likely we are to move to another, even better, situation later.

Switching costs are the time, money, or effort it requires to make a change. When we make an initial investment in something, switching costs are hypothetical and in the future, so we tend to underestimate them. It is easy to imagine we’ll just get a new credit card later or break a lease on a long-term rental when the time comes. The problem is when the time does come, the switching costs seem bigger up close than they did from far away.

far from safeguarding them from divorce or unhappiness, moving in with someone can increase your chances of making a mistake—or of spending too much time on one. The best time to work on your marriage is before you have one and in today’s world that may mean before—and during—cohabitation.

“chemistry is not the same thing as compatibility.”

By this I mean two things: being alike in ways that matter and genuinely liking who the other person is. Often these go hand in hand. We sometimes hear that opposites attract, and maybe they do for a hookup. More often, however, similarity is the essence of compatibility.

Dating and married couples do tend to be similar to each other in the ways just listed above. This is what is called “assortative mating” which is the robust finding that we tend to sort ourselves into pairs with those with whom we have things in common.

What’s more is that, because twentysomethings are relatively inexperienced in love or not even yet looking for it, many have a narrow conceptualization of what their deal-breakers even are.

“I just don’t feel like I come first for her,” Max continued as if I was not speaking. “She’s busy with her work and her hobbies. I’m jealous of how much she likes her job. And what about when we have kids? How is she going to balance meeting my needs and the kids’ needs, especially if she’s got work going on?”

oH IT'S YOU that being INSECURE then.. don't mock someone who enjoyed their work and hobbies?! AARGH KZL

If you think that what Max was telling me sounds unusually traditional or maybe limited to a place like Virginia, think again. A 2015 study out of Boston surveyed more than 1,000 young adults, aged twenty-two to thirty-five, who were employed at one of five large, global corporations. The results pointed to a paradox among heterosexual couples that general sentiments about egalitarianism are not always backed up in day-to-day life, especially when children are involved. Of those surveyed, about one-third of new dads thought their partner should provide the majority of child care; like Max, they wanted traditional relationships in which they could focus more on work and their partners could focus more on the house and the kids. The other two-thirds of new dads said they wanted to share parenting equally with their partners, yet here’s the paradoxical part: Only half said this is what actually went on in their homes. (In defense of these new dads, just as women tend to be seen as the primary parents, men tend to be seen as the primary earners, leaving many males feeling extra pressure to focus on and succeed at work.)

oh this is sucks

The best time to work on your marriage is before you have one,

1. 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?...

we now know that the frontal lobe does not finish wiring up until sometime between the ages of twenty and thirty. What this means is that, in our twenties, the quick, hot, impulsive, pleasure-seeking, emotional brain is ready to go, while the slow, cool, rational, forward-thinking frontal lobe is still a work in progress.

Twentysomethings aren’t brain damaged, of course, but because of the still-developing frontal lobe, they can be what psychologists call “uneven.” Many of my clients are confused by the fact that they went to good colleges, yet they don’t know how to start the careers they want. Or they don’t understand how they could have been valedictorians but are unable to make decisions about whom to date and why. Or they feel like fakes because they managed to get good jobs yet cannot calm themselves down at work. Or they can’t figure out how twentysomethings who did not do so well in school are now outpacing them in life. These are different skill sets.

ya allah gua

evolutionary theorists say this critical period primes us to learn about the complex challenges of adulthood: how to find a professional niche, how to choose and live with a mate, how to be a parent, where and when to stake our claims. This last critical period is rapidly wiring us for adulthood.

Twentysomething jobs teach us about regulating our emotions and negotiating the complicated social interactions that make up adult life. Twentysomething work and school are our best chance to acquire the technical, sophisticated skills needed in so many careers today. Twentysomething relationships prepare us for marriage and other partnerships. Twentysomething plans help us think across the years and decades ahead. Twentysomething setbacks ready us for handling difficulties with our spouses and bosses and children. We even know that larger twentysomething social networks change our brains for the better as they require us to communicate with more and different others.

Because our twenties are the capstone of this last critical period, they are, as one neurologist said, a time of “great risk and great opportunity.”

Never again will we be so quick to learn new things. Never again will it be so easy to become the people we hope to be. So whatever it is we want to change about ourselves, our twenties are the easiest time to change it. The risk is that we may not act now.

In a use-it-or-lose-it fashion, the new frontal lobe connections we use are preserved and quickened. Those we don’t use just waste away through pruning. We become what we hear and see and do every day. We don’t become what we don’t hear and don’t see and don’t do every day. In neuroscience, this is known as “survival of the busiest.”

oh paham.. makanya hrs dipake semua skill2 itu biar gak pruning si frontal lobe aku

Twentysomethings who use their brains by engaging with good jobs and real relationships and the “real world” are learning the language of adulthood just when their brains are primed to learn it. As we will see in the chapters ahead, they learn to pay attention to how they are using their time—and, thus, to how they are wiring their brain. They learn to calm themselves down at work and in love, and this brings mastery and success. They learn to get along and get ahead, and this makes them happier and more confident. They learn to make a plan for their lives so that everything they want fits in it. They learn to look ahead before life’s defining moments are behind them. Twentysomethings who don’t use their brains become thirtysomethings who feel behind as professionals and as partners—and as people—and they miss out on making the most of life still to come.

Besides, even if our brains could wait, love and work can’t. The twenties are, indeed, the time to get busy. It’s forward thinking for an uncertain age.

This matters because relationships are part of what our brains and our bodies need. They are part of our emotional immune system and part of what makes us happy and healthy, especially during these incredibly difficult and often lonely twentysomething years. Yet, my clients and readers tell me—and my students on Semester at Sea said it too—that, thanks in no small part to our devices, not only do relationships feel less available as sources of happiness or support but relationships themselves have become the stressors.

Much has been made of the fact that anxiety is now the leading mental health complaint among twentysomethings—but not all forms on anxiety are on the rise. The most common type of anxiety in this age group? Social anxiety. More and more, young adults are reporting feeling socially inadequate, socially isolated, socially incompetent, and socially behind. They say they feel nervous and self-conscious when they are with people they don’t know and also even sometimes with ones they do.

I see this in my private practice as an ever-increasing number of twentysomethings come into my office—or email me—complaining of problems with their social lives. “I don’t know how to go deep with people.” “I’ve never had a best friend.” “I’ve never been on a date.” “I’ve never kissed a guy.” “I can’t stop thinking about what other people think about me.” Perhaps this is the true travesty of “socia...

As twentysomethings, time is one of your most valuable resources, and how you spend it matters, both in the here-and-now and in the there-and-then.

In tiny increments, like five-minute “smoke breaks,” your screens are stealing your hours and your days. They are stealing your health and your sleep and your hobbies and your goals. They are stealing your relationships and your best chance for connection and support. They are stealing your present and, therefore, your future. They are stealing your defining decade and your lives. Having your attention drawn away from who you are and who you want to be is the antithesis of living an intentional life. If you don’t pay attention to what you are doing in the moment, the years will pass you by.