20 Quotes From "The Defining Decade" That Will Make You Take Your 20s A Lot More Seriously

21 quotes

Why is it so bad to be disillusioned about your 20s? Because what you do now will have an exponential impact on the rest of your life. Your brain is going through its last growth spurt. The first 10 years of your career impacts your financial growth for t

“Twentysomethings who don't feel anxious and incompetent at work are usually overconfident or underemployed.”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“How do you get the happy ending? John Irving ought to know. One of my favorite authors, Irving writes these multigenerational epics of fiction that somehow work out in the end. How does he do it? He says, 'I always begin with the last sentence ; then I work my way backwards, through the plot, to whe…”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“Traveling in a third-world country is the closest thing there is to being married and raising kids. You have glorious hikes and perfect days on the beach. You go on adventures you would never try, or enjoy, alone. But you also can't get away from each other. Everything is unfamiliar. Money is tight…”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“Our 20s are the defining decade of adulthood. 80% of life's most defining moments take place by about age 35. 2/3 of lifetime wage growth happens during the first ten years of a career. More than half of Americans are married or are dating or living with their future partner by age 30. Personality c…”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“The one thing I have learned is that you can't think your way through life. The only way to figure out what to do is to do - something.”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“Knowing what to overlook is one way older adults are typically wiser than young adults. With age comes what is known as "positivity effect". We become more interested in positive information, and our brains react less strongly to what negative information we do encounter.”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“Doing something later is not automatically the same as doing something better.”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“Feeling better doesn’t come from avoiding adulthood, it comes from investing in adulthood.”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“Confidence doesn't come from the inside out. It moves from the outside in. People feel less anxious--and more confident--on the inside when they can point to things they have done well on the outside. Fake confidence comes from stuffing our self-doubt. Empty confidence comes from parental platitudes…”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“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, amazon.com

“The lottery question might get you thinking about what you would do if talent and money didn't matter. But they do. The question twentysomethings need to ask themselves is what they would do with their lives if they didn't win the lottery.”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“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,…”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“Distinctiveness is a fundamental part of identity. We develop a clearer sense of ourselves by firming up the boundaries between ourselves and others. I am who I am because of how I am different from those around me. There is a point to my life because it cannot be carried out in exactly the same way…”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“We are led to believe the twenty something years don’t matter, yet, with the glamorization of and near obsession with the twenties, there is little to remind us that anything else ever will. This causes too many men and women to squander the most transformative years of their adult lives, only to pa…”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“Older spouses may be more mature, but later marriage has its own challenges. Rather than growing together while their twenty something selves are still forming, partners who marry older may be more set in their ways. And a series of low-commitment, possibly destructive relationships can create bad h…”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“As one human resources professional said to me, ‘I wish someone would tell twenty somethings that the office has a completely different culture than what they are used to. You can’t start an e-mail with ‘Hey!’ You’re probably going to have to work at one thing for quite a while before being promoted…”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“Even simply having goals can make us happier and more confident—both now and later. In one study that followed nearly five hundred young adults from college to the mid-thirties, increased goal-setting in the twenties led to greater purpose, mastery, agency, and well-being in the thirties. Goals are…”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“Our twenties can be like living beyond time. When we graduate from school, we leave behind the only lives we have ever known, ones that have been neatly packaged in semester-sized chunks with goals nestled within. Suddenly, life opens up and the syllabi are gone. There are days and weeks and months…”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“For the most part, "naturals" are myths. People who are especially good at something may have some innate inclination, or some particular talent, but they have also spent about ten thousand hours practicing or doing that thing.”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“I wasn't scared of losing my past. I was scared of losing my future.”

— Meg Jay, amazon.com

“Survivors create survival mechanisms. Mine is pushing through. I push everything to the side, out of my line of vision, out of my mind and I focus relentlessly on my goal. Not sure what you’d call it, but who cares? I’m a fighter and that’s enough. I live each day happy to wake up each morning to my…”

— Rachel Thompson, amazon.com