Our Roaring 20s: ‘The Defining Decade’
The Defining Decade
Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them now
by Meg, Ph.D. Jay Hardcover, 241 pages | purchase
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It ‘s about that time of year again, when a modern crop of 20-something college graduates prepares to take those beginning steps into the exercise world. In her fresh book, The Defining Decade : Why Your Twenties Matter — And How to Make the Most of Them now, University of Virginia clinical psychologist Meg Jay argues that those first years of adulthood are the most significant time in a young person ‘s life. Jay recently joined NPR ‘s Rachel Martin to discuss why the 20s are such a crucial age for both college grads and non-college grads. Interview Highlights On why our 20s are the most defining decade
We know that 80 percentage of life ‘s most define moments happen by senesce 35. We know that 70 percentage of life wage growth happens in the first 10 years of a career. We know that more than half of Americans are married or living with or dating their future partner by 30. Our personalities change more in our 20s than any early time. Our birthrate peaks. Our brain caps off its last growth spurts … The things that we do and the things that we do n’t do are going to have an enormous impression across years and even generations. On why a person’s childhood doesn’t necessarily shape his or her 20s
If there ‘s ever a 10-year period when you ‘re going to transcend your childhood, it ‘s going to be the 20-something years … I ‘ve worked with clients with the saddest family histories, who grew up chant, “ You ca n’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends. ” And then in their 20s, they transform their lives by picking and creating good families for themselves. On the flip slope, I ‘ve seen 20-somethings who ‘ve had every advantage, but who blow it and fall identical far from where they grew up .
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Jen Fariello/Twelve/Hachette Book Group
Jen Fariello/Twelve/Hachette Book Group
On the 20-somethings Jay helps in her private practice
Twenty-somethings are worried. They ‘re anxious. They ‘re disquieted about whether life is going to work out for them. Whether it ‘s going to work out equally well as they thought it would … But the thing to do about that is to realize that my 20s are in truth the time to make my own certainty, and to make sure that yes, my life is going to work out because I ‘m starting to put the pieces together in an designed way. On giving advice to 20-somethings Twenty-somethings are identical prone to what ‘s called present bias. So are all humans, which is what dilatoriness is about, and petroleum pulmonary tuberculosis and overspending … I think thinking about late is identical chilling for 20-somethings, because they do n’t have a lot of experience doing that. so, a distribute of what I do with clients is not give them advice equally much as ask very point questions : “ What is it that you want ? ” “ Where would you like to be in five or 10 years ? ” “ Do you want to get married ? ” “ Do you want to have kids ? ” “ What do you want your job to be ? ” … These are questions that no one asks 20-somethings because they know it scares them. But deep down, 20-somethings want people to ask them these questions because they know they need to figure it out .
