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

by Meg Jay

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.

“No, it’s not,” I said. Often the clients with the toughest family backgrounds know the least about how to get what they want in love. But these are the clients who need to be the most careful. They are the very clients who need to partner well.

Childhood is important, but more and more I am curious about what went on in high school. High school and our twenties are not only the time when we have our most self-defining experiences, study after study shows they are also the time when we have our most self-defining memories.

What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.

William James, the father of research psychology in the United States, said “The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.”