The Defining Decade Quotes

“In one way or another, almost every twentysomething client I have wonders, 'Will things work out for me?' The uncertainty behind that question is what makes twentysomething life so difficult, but it is also what makes twentysomething action so possible and so necessary. It's unsettling to not know the future and, in a way, even more daunting to consider that what we are doing with our twentysomething lives might be determining it.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“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.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“For work success to lead to confidence, the job has to be challenging and it must require effort. It has to be done without too much help. And it cannot go well every single day. A long run of easy successes creates a sort of fragile confidence, the kind that is shattered when the first failure comes along. A more resilient confidence comes from succeeding—and from surviving some failures.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“But while the urban tribe helps us survive, it does not help us thrive. The urban tribe may bring us soup when we are sick, but it is the people we hardly know - those who never make it into our tribe - who will swiftly and dramatically change our lives for the better.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Interviewers want to hear a reasonable story about the past, present, and future.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“We think that by avoiding decisions now, we keep all of our options open for later - but not making choices is a choice all the same.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Marriage is one of our most defining moments because so much is wrapped up in it. If building a career is like spending twelve hours at the blackjack table—seeing the cards as you make your decisions, playing each hand with current winnings in mind, having a new opportunity to take a chance or play it safe with every card dealt—then choosing a mate is like walking over to the roulette wheel and putting all your chips on red 32.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Twentysomethings who use their brains by engaging with good jobs and real relationships are learning the language of adulthood just when their brains are primed to learn it. In the chapters ahead, we will see how they learn to calm themselves down at work and in love, and this brings mastery and success. They”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Identity capital is our collection of personal assets. It is the repertoire of individual resources that we assemble over time. These are the investments we make in ourselves, the things we do well enough, or long enough, that they become a part of who we are. Some identity capital goes on a résumé, such as degrees, jobs, test scores, and clubs. Other identity capital is more personal, such as how we speak, where we are from, how we solve problems, how we look. Identity capital is how we build ourselves—bit by bit, over time. Most important, identity capital is what we bring to the adult marketplace. It is the currency we use to metaphorically purchase jobs and relationships and other things we want.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Many twentysomethings assume life will come together quickly after thirty, and maybe it will. But it is still going to be a different life. We imagine that if nothing happens in our twenties then everything is still possible in our thirties. We think that by avoiding decisions now, we keep all of our options open for later—but not making choices is a choice all the same.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Identity capital is our collection of personal assets. It is the repertoire of individual resources that we assemble over time. These are the investments we make in ourselves, the things we do well enough, or long enough, that they become a part of who we are. Some”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“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 (...) a story that balances complexity and cohesion is frankly, diagnostic.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“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.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Despite its revolutionary promises, Facebook can turn our everyday lives into that wedding we have all heard about: the one where the bride chooses her prettiest friends, not her best friends, to be bridesmaids. It can feel like a popularity contest where being Liked is what matters, being the best is the only respectable option, how our partners look is more important than how they act, the race to get married is on, and we have to be clever all the time. It can be just another place, not to be, but to seem.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Sometimes dating or married couples decide to split because things change—someone cheated or had to move—but, more often, people split up because things don’t change. It is far more common to hear couples say that, in retrospect, the differences were there all along.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“By thinking through his actual options, Ian stumbled onto a twentysomething version of what psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas calls the unthought known. Unthought knowns are those things we know about ourselves but forget somehow. These are the dreams we have lost sight of or the truths we sense but don’t say out loud. We may be afraid of acknowledging the unthought known to other people because we are afraid of what they might think. Even more often, we fear what the unthought known will then mean for ourselves and our lives. Ian pretended that not knowing what to do was the hard part when, somewhere inside, I think he knew that making a choice about something is when the real uncertainty begins. The more terrifying uncertainty is wanting something but not knowing how to get it. It is working toward something even though there is no sure thing. When we make choices, we open ourselves up to hard work and failure and heartbreak, so sometimes it feels easier not to know, not to choose, and not to do. But it isn’t.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Twenty somethings who aren't at least a little scared about their relationships are often the ones who are being the least thoughtful.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“What no one tells twentysomethings like Emma is that finally, and suddenly, they can pick their own families - they can create their own families - and these are the families that life will be about. These are the families that will define the decades ahead.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“I wish I'd been more.. I don't know... intentional.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Knowing you want to do something isn’t the same as knowing how to do it, and even knowing how to do something isn’t the same as actually doing it well.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“became more urgent and more defined. A timeline may not be a virtual reality chamber, but it can help our brains see time for what it really is: limited.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“The Great Recession and its continuing aftermath have left many twenty-somethings feeling naïve, even devastated.Twenty-somethings are more educated than ever before, but a smaller percentage find work after college. Many entry-level jobs have gone overseas, making it more difficult for twenty-somethings to gain a foothold at home. With a contracting economy and a growing population, unemployment is at its highest in decades. An unpaid internship is the new starter job. About a quarter of twenty-somethings are out of work and another quarter work only part-time. Twenty-somethings who do have paying jobs earn less than their 1970s counterparts when adjusted for inflation.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Your iPod is whispering in your ear. It was keeping you company, but now it's like a good friend turned bad [...] It is turning your life into a dark, looping rock opera.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Society is structured to distract people from the decisions that have a huge impact on happiness in order to focus attention on the decisions that have a marginal impact on happiness.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“By 2019, 85 percent of Instagram influencers were between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, which means that what most twentysomethings see on their phones all day are other twentysomethings living their best lives—in bathing suits—with some making a lot of money along the way. Meanwhile, child celebrities and everyday kids spend their youth acting twenty, while mature adults and the Real Housewives dress, and are sculpted, to look twenty-nine. The young look older and the old look younger, collapsing the adult life span into one long twentysomething ride.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“In the world of mental health, the lowest-functioning clients and the highest-functioning clients receive the worst care. The lowest-functioning clients typically struggle with serious mental illnesses that are maintained more than cured. And, because of downward drift that draws a disproportionate number of such patients into the lower income brackets, these clients often do not have access to top-notch care. The highest-functioning clients, on the other hand, usually have a lot going for them, including family or schools that connect them with private therapists when needed. These high-functioning clients are what therapists call YAVIS—young, attractive, verbal, intelligent, and successful—and these qualities bestow all sorts of social and psychological advantages. Being young means, as a colleague once put it, “that you haven’t completely screwed up your life yet.” Being verbal allows you to easily exchange a common currency with friends and bosses as you parlay being talkative into social status. Intelligence aids achievement and problem-solving, and even leadership. Successful people are generally brimming with confidence. And, as Aristotle said, “beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction.” So, YAVIS clients are well received nearly everywhere they go, and many therapists light up when one comes walking in the door. Still, there are two paths to being smart and charming when you are young: Life has been good or life has been bad. When life has been good, maybe someone goes to see a therapist for a while because some isolated thing is not currently going well. Most likely, the difficulty will be resolved quickly and the client will be on his way. When life has been bad, someone goes to see a therapist because even though things look pretty on the outside the person feels horrible on the inside, and this is a discrepancy that even many therapists cannot hold. Sometimes it is just too jarring to imagine that someone who seems so perfect has lived a life that has been so imperfect. What results is a therapy where the client’s image gets in the way of the help that he or she needs. The client has come to focus on what has not gone well, but the therapist is blinded by what has. Too often, being successful when you are young is about survival. Some people are good at hiding their troubles. They are good at “falling up.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“people who have some control over their emotions report greater life satisfaction, optimism, purpose, and better relationships with others.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Real confidence comes from mastery experiences, which are actual, lived moments of success, especially when things seem difficult.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Researchers who have looked at how people resolve identity crises have found that lives that are all capital and no crisis—all work and no exploration—feel rigid and conventional.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Dating for me in my twenties was like this musical-chairs thing. Everybody was running around and having fun. Then I hit thirty and it was like the music stopped and everybody started sitting down. I didn’t want to be the only one left without a chair. Sometimes I think I married my husband just because he was the closest chair to me at thirty. Sometimes I think I should have just waited for someone who might be a better partner, and maybe I should have, but that seemed risky. What I really wish I’d done is thought more about marriage sooner. Like when I was in my twenties.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now