The Defining Decade Quotes

“Unthought knowns are those things we know about ourselves but forget somehow.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“When it comes to making choices, less is more. The fewer choices we have, the more likely we are to pick something.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

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

“I would advise the same approach today as you ask your own weak ties for letters of recommendation, suggestions or introductions, or informational interviews: Make yourself relevant. Do your homework so you know precisely what you want or need. Then, gather up the courage and politely ask for it.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“This is a problem because, while the urban tribe may be the most supportive figures in our twenties, they are not the most transformative. 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

“No one I know really knew what they wanted to do when they graduated. What people are doing now is usually not something that they’d ever even heard of in undergrad.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“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 unsettiling to not know the future and, in a way, even more daunting to consider 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

“If you are paying attention to your life as a twentysomething, the real glory days are still to come.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“What I most notice about spending less time on social media is that I finally get to think my own thoughts.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Most have come of age on their devices, where they are bombarded not just with skydiving selfies, but with headlines about economic, political, climatic, and global doom.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“At the time, I thought this man was not a particularly good backcountry ranger. Now I have to laugh. He was telling me what I say to my twentysomething clients every day, what this book has been all about. 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

“Goals direct us from the inside, but shoulds are paralyzing judgments from the outside. Goals feel like authentic dreams while shoulds feel like oppressive obligations. Shoulds set up a false dichotomy between either meeting an ideal or being a failure, between perfection or settling. The tyranny of the should even pits us against our own best interests.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

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

“Compared to their twentysomething selves, women are about half as fertile at thirty, about one-quarter as fertile at thirty-five, and about one-eighth as fertile at forty.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“30 is not the new 20, so claim your adulthood, get some identity capital, use your weak ties, pick your family.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - and How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Sometimes the best way to help people is to slow them down long enough to examine their own thinking.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

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

“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 want leap over those who can’t.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“The best is the enemy of the good. —Voltaire, writer/philosopher”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

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

“We become what we hear and see and do every day.”
― 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. The most important decision any of us make is who we marry. Yet there are no courses on how to choose a spouse. —David Brooks, political and cultural commentator”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

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

“Weak ties feel too different or, in some cases, literally too far away to be close friends. But that's the point. Because they're not just figures in an already ingrown cluster, weak ties gives us access to something fresh. They know things and people that we don't know. Information and opportunity spread farther and faster through weak ties than through close friends because weak ties have fewer overlapping contacts. Weak ties are like bridges you cannot see all the way across, so there is no telling where they might lead.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“With all the attention paid to the urban tribe, however, many twentysomethings have limited themselves to huddling together with like-minded peers. Some are in almost constant contact with the same few people. 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

“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 resume, 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

“while most therapists would agree with Socrates that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” a lesser-known quote by American psychologist Sheldon Kopp might be more important here: “The unlived life is not worth examining.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

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

“As I gathered up my maps and turned to go, I hesitated and asked the ranger, “Am I going to make it?” He looked at me and said, “You haven’t decided yet.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now