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

by Meg Jay

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.

It takes courage to travel to new places where the language and norms are different from what you know. And it takes moxie to do all this thousands of miles away from mom or dad.

They want to learn about themselves by learning about others. They want to reflect on how they think and live by being exposed to thinking and living differently.

me asf

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.

heard you

I look up from my own screen to find that we are all mindlessly scrolling rather than talking to each other. If this is how we “spend time together,” we are learning nothing about each other or from one another.

ugh i fear

the information they choose to share with me in person seems to be the opposite of how they might express themselves to the world online.

mhmm

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.

after covid, i've lowkey been a victim

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.

the brain is designed to pay special attention to what catches us off-guard, so we can be better prepared to meet the world next time.

“The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.” Knowing what to overlook is one way that older adults are typically wiser than young adults.

yessirrrrr

Suppressing your feelings also keeps your body and brain stressed, and it impairs your memory. It will leave you in sort of a fog.”

oop

Who we are affects what we do, and what we do affects who we are, over and over again.

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.

the goal being to gather, as he put it, “few regrets and a million memories.”

“There is a big difference between having a life in your thirties and starting a life in your thirties.”

The future isn’t written in the stars. There are no guarantees. So claim your adulthood. Be intentional. Get to work. Pick your family. Do the math. Make your own certainty. Don’t be defined by what you didn’t know or didn’t do. You are deciding your life right now.

ok ok im going!!