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

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Adjusting to my first entry-level job definitely took time and a lot of learning. I made mistakes and was shown grace, and I chose to grow from them and not make the same mistakes again. Meg mentions this in her book The Defining Decade. However, as Meg points out, confidence comes from doing things. It comes from succeeding and overcoming mistakes. Failure can lead to confidence. So, it’s not just about faking confidence in our 20s, it’s about learning to grow it through our decisions.

I also found the lengthy discussion of basic brain anatomy to be rather useless. Anyone who has ever heard of Phineas Gage or taken Psychology 101 would not get anything new out of those sections, and they felt like cop-out filler: "Your BWAINZ aren't even developed! Poor widdle kidults!" If her target audience is as putatively mature as she argues, then just give a paragraph or two and point the astute reader to more resources. Sooo….never read one of these before, and I always assumed that the audience of self-help books was composed largely of people wh oh, by the way, Dr. Jay, I can't have children at all. I'm 22, and I have a nonexistent uterine lining, through no fault of my own. So I fail to see how your preaching can be applied to everyone, that we all need to "hurry up and make some babies!" There are countless women with PCOS and other diseases who can't have children at all, even if they'd like to. Age is NOT the only factor for infertility, and from reading this book, you'd think it was the main reason.) Jay’s advice: Introspect and try to find what you know about yourself but are afraid to admit to yourself. What do you want deep down, but don’t know how to get, or are afraid you’ll fail at? My Life Should Look Better on Facebook The Great Recession and its continuing aftermath have left many twentysomethings feeling naïve, even devastated. Twentysomethings 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 twentysomethings 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 twentysomethings are out of work and another quarter work only part-time. Twentysomethings who do have paying jobs earn less than their 1970s counterparts when adjusted for inflation.”I am glad I read this book as it is a nice wake-up call that we don’t have all the time in the world to live out our goals. We need to work on them now. And just as prepping for college is regimented and smart, we must now take charge to make sure kids, marriage, career are also well prepared for for the most optimal and happy outcomes. Why should the system suddenly fall away? In this way, it was an eye-opener.

Never building up this capital and never getting good jobs leads to depression, sitting around at home, drinking, the opiod epidemic…How do I reconcile the fact that I feel listless with the fact that I am meant to be living it up in my twenties? As a clinical psychologist, Meg Jay talks about the same conversations she had with one of her clients. They were so anxious about what career step to take, they didn’t take any at all!

So while it might be hard to find your passion at first, know what career field to go into, or figure out your life calling, it’s not about doing everything you can to get there. It’s about just doing something. Fortunately, all of the same advice still applies. Listen to my TED talk, read The Defining Decade and don't think I'm not talking to you. Maybe your defining decade will be 30 to 40. Time may be a bit more of the essence but that can be good. Often our 30s are when we really feel the urgency to go out and get the lives we want. If what you're really asking is whether it is too late for you, then the answer is absolutely not. I wrote a book and gave a talk for 20-somethings because those are the years when we start grappling with questions about work and love and I wanted people to have good information as soon as possible. And let's face it, if I wrote a book or gave a talk titled "Something to Think About Sometime Between 20 and 40", then no one would tune in until 39. That's human nature... Like, maybe some people out there never made decisions about having children because they thought they'd never meet anyone. (Yes, this is an actual belief that people hold.) Wow, by the time they actually "married", it was too late to have children. Are they still at fault?

As a case in point, one of the final sections of this book concerns fertility—the biological limits on when a person can have a child. Now, this information is quite important to know, of course. Many people have overly-optimistic notions of when they can reliably conceive. However, it is clear that Jay basically takes it for granted that her reader is heterosexual and wants children. She even dwells on the sadness of grandparents hardly knowing their grandchildren, because of delayed child-rearing. But there is no discussion as to how a person can think through whether or not to have children, or advice for people who cannot. The message is simple: breed before it’s too late. First off, I expected to hate The Defining Decade. Which does beg the question as to why I was reading it, but never mind that. I feared that the book would read like one giant "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG" to me, a single, 28-year-old law clerk living at home while I continue the search for a more permanent position. I suspect Dr. Jay would tell me that I am doing a few things "wrong," at least in the sense of not furthering my goals, but I also learned I have probably done at least a few things right. Most importantly, the book offers some guidance as to how to set things right, and it didn't make me feel like I'd run out of time to make changes simply because I'm approaching 30. It encouraged me to know that I am not doing this journey alone, that there are solutions and real-world answers to the questions 20-somethings face on a daily basis, and that people like Meg are out there to guide us on our journey. This part of the book was fun to read because while we can often feel very anxious at our first entry-level jobs as 20-somethings, we don’t have to be. Meg encourages us to calm ourselves and see the big picture. Last but not least, facing up to your finances is empowering. Don't let money feel like a monster under your bed you are scared to peek at.

Large social networks can improve our brains by forcing us to communicate in a diversity of ways and better shape our beliefs. Having a few close friends and no one outside our bubble harms our intellectual development. Calm Yourself The very day I read this book, The Billfold had a blog posting critiquing Jay's work, and between the review of Mike Dang (The Billfold) and Goodreads reviewer 'M' (below), I don't have much to add to their comments.The Defining Decadehas a whole section on love, and I found it helpful in some aspects, but certainly did not blow me away. So, the next time you think about avoiding life’s responsibilities or another life lesson to be learned, instead take the time to make it a habit. Some of the best areas you can start doing that with are the ones Meg covers, but also your finances, your health, your faith/spirituality, and your personal development. I don’t believe we should put so much pressure on one decade of our life. Sure building a strong foundation in life is important, but focusing too much on your 20’s could cause you to feel stressed out most of the time because you’re not making this the best decade of your life. Also who knows what life will bring and what moments will be the most defining? Out of the blue I got a call from a recruiter who got me a contract at a major tech company and put me on the path I am on now. He happened to see my resume on Monster, and that was that. This was after weeks and months of working my "weak ties" as Dr. Jay advocates in her book, scanning craigslist/monster/whatever daily to find the freshest postings, and wondering around town looking for help wanted signs without success.