The Defining Decade Quotes

“When you partner with someone, you have a second chance at family—both nuclear and extended—and I feel like you’re not taking it. I don’t think you realize what a missed opportunity this is.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“whether we recognize it or not, joining our lives with someone is also about joining families.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Picking your family is realizing you have choices—and owning them—rather than pointing the finger at, or waiting around for, luck or fate or Cupid or chemistry. Picking your family is having the audacity to put together the sort of family you want and need—whatever that is.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Having a series of low-commitment, possibly destructive relationships in our twenties and thirties can create bad habits and erode faith in love.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

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

“it was sort of liberating to make a choice about something.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“An interesting life wasn’t going to come from resisting these choices, it was going to come from making these choices.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“In the twenty-first century, careers and lives don’t roll off an assembly line. We have to put together the pieces ourselves.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Saying yes to one concrete thing felt like saying no to an interesting or limitless life. In fact, it’s the other way around. If Ian didn’t say yes to something, his life was going to become uninteresting and limited.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“We have to shift from a negative identity, or a sense of what I’m not, to a positive one, or a sense of what I am. This takes courage.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“But different is simple. Like the easiest way to explain black is to call it the opposite of white, often the first thing we know about ourselves is not what we are—it’s what we aren’t.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“They say, ‘Oh, you’re cute.’ To them, settling down is settling. But I go to their apartments, and my neighbor next door, she just sits around and picks apart every guy she dates. And she’s still trying to figure out what to do for her career. She’s still deciding whether to take the GRE! I look around and… it’s… it’s just a bunch of furniture that doesn’t go together! And she’s in her thirties! I know this sounds mean, but I think… she’s not happy at all… and I think… I hope I don’t wind up like that.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“When I asked about the “just” in “just go home,” Talia said she felt like going home would be “giving up” or “taking the easy way out.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“saw that bigness came from investing in what I had, from taking part in what was in front of me.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“I stopped thinking about whether what I was doing was below me. I learned to not worry about how to make it to the next level and just focus on the job at hand. If they were willing to let me do it, I was willing to try. I think the fact that I never felt like I was better than those around me, and that I was just focused on learning and getting results, is what has led me to better and better things at my company.”
― 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 judge us from the outside.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“What would an A in your twenties even mean?” I wondered aloud. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. I just feel like I shouldn’t be less-than.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“I feel like such a failure,” Talia continued. “In school there was a formula. It was pretty easy to figure out what to do and where you stood. You’d know you were living up to your potential. Sometimes I think I should just go back to graduate school for my PhD because it would sound better and I could get A’s again. I don’t know how to get an A in my twenties. I feel like I am failing for the first time.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids. Even if it’s a bit edgy, a bit out of your comfort zone, saying yes means you will do something new, meet someone new, and make a difference. —Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Google”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“But something better doesn’t just come along,” I said. “One good piece of capital is how you get to better.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“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”.” The post-twentysomething brain is still plastic, of course, but the opportunity is that never again in our lifetime will the brain offer up countless new connections and see what we make of them. 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. The risk is that we may not act now.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“As criticism blows us every which way, we feel—at work and in love—only as good as the last thing that happened.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“I am curious about what the future will look like if more people start to realize the implications of never actually being present.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“This experience has taught me I do not need to put everything up online because I know I am having fun and it is so shallow to feel a need to show the world what I am doing.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Conventionality wasn’t his niche.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“They work at jobs they are overqualified for or they work only part-time—”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

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

“Twentysomethings who take the time to explore and also have the nerve to make commitments along the way construct stronger identities. They have higher self-esteem and are more persevering and realistic.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are. —Charles de Montesquieu, writer/philosopher Don’t compare yourself to other people; compare yourself to who you were yesterday. —Jordan Peterson, psychologist”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now

“Lessons happen at every age, but twentysomethings take these difficult moments particularly hard. Remember the 'uneven' twentysomething brain from a couple of chapters ago? The one in which the hot, reactive, emotional part of the brain is fully developed while the cool, rational frontal lobe where we counteract emotion with reason is still wiring up? That's the brain that twentysomethings take to work every day and this is why young workers like Danielle often respond emotionally, rather than rationally, when things at the office go wrong. … With age comes what is known as the ‘positivity effect.’ We become more interested in positive information, and our brains react less strongly to what negative information we do encounter.”
― Meg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now