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

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At Berkeley, Dr. Jay was a research associate on the Mills Longitudinal Study, one of the longest-running studies of female adult development in the world. Her research on women, depression, and gender was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, and was published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and as the Symonds Prize article in Studies in Gender and Sexuality. Her work on the assessment of depression has been published in Psychological Assessment. 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 Brain and Body section also covered a lot of neuroscience research I wasn't aware of. For example, your brain undergoes a radical period of reconfiguration in your 20s which means now is the best opportunity for learning skills. Or, the frontal cortex that controls a lot of our mature responses such as regulating emotions is still developing for most people in their 20s. Besides the physical brain, Dr. Jay also talks about the mind such as learning how to calm yourself down, how to develop confidence (rather than believing it's fixed), and that you can radically alter how you feel by changing parts of your life. That said, I do think there is something to be learned from the social comparisons we notice ourselves making. Are you envying something you would like to have for yourself, and does this say something about where you should start? Can you think less about what others are doing and think more about your vision for yourself? Identify two things you would like to have accomplished in one year or in two years, and compare your progress to your own goals.

But a confluence of economic and social forces has meant that people now have a longer period between childhood and full-fledged adulthood. One reason is birth control. As oral contraceptives became readily available in the 1960s and 1970s, women were able to delay the decision to start families, and their labor force participation soared over 50 percent. There’s also student debt, which has prompted many recent graduates to move home with their parents. On top of all that, as religious affiliation has declined, more than half of Americans now derive their sense of self from work — meaning choosing a career isn’t just finding a source of livelihood but also of identity.Ok, I’m ready for a review. To put it bluntly, I think this book encapsulates what it means to be so uncritical as to not only tolerate but actually serve white supremacy culture. Okay, that last part may be a bit extreme. As a graduate student in a counseling psychology program, Jay, as a clinical psychologist, made me feel like crap. As if I don't already feel the pressure from family and society to get a boyfriend, this book just added to it. I have to say that by the end, I was extremely disappointed in it. I understand the points she is making. It does become harder to establish relationships and have children as you get older. NOW is the time to begin investing in your future life. I get that. I am on my way to that. I think that is a great message that many twentysomethings need. I just feel like the rest of the ideas she touches on sounded condescending and made me feel like I am not where I am supposed to be. It made me feel like "Oh, crap. Have I wasted the last seven years because I haven't worked on perfecting my personality? And as I approach my late twenties, the time I have to cement that personality is slipping away?" I just feel more pressured than before reading this and I don't like it. Basically, Dr. Jay doesn’t like it when young people say they’re just going to let life take them wherever it takes them. She wants them to think about what they want, and to start making decisions about how they’re going to get there. It’s the people we hardly know, and not our closest friends, who will improve our lives most dramatically” I have never met anyone who thinks an entire decade of their lives is for "practice," although apparently all of Dr. Jay's clients do.

Sooo….never read one of these before, and I always assumed that the audience of self-help books was composed largely of people who don't actually have what I think of as "problems." And by that I mean self-help books are for people dealing with something that can be dealt with, as opposed to something that can't. The difference between 'I need to learn to be more assertive' and 'my retina tore in half and it's inoperable' (true story). Because my assumption has always been that dealing with things that can be dealt with is a skill that results from all the shit you learn from the things that can't be dealt with.

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? An award-winning lecturer, Dr. Jay served as adjunct faculty at Berkeley where she taught Clinical Psychology, Personality Psychology, Social Psychology, and Psychology of Gender. Dr. Jay currently supervises doctoral students in clinical psychology at the University of Virginia. Or maybe, some people want to wait until they meet their spouse before they make the decision - some people are simply NOT parent material. You can love someone, and be aware that the person that you love wouldn't be the best parent. I don't think this is a stupid reason to delay making a decision on children.

Work talks about increasing your identity capital, the value of "weak ties", that you know what you want even though you think you don't, the unhelpful prevalence of Facebook comparisons, and seeing a career as the first step in a unique, customized life versus settling down.

Psychologist Meg Jay has a message for 20-somethings: marriage, work and kids often happen later, but you can start planning now. In her book, The Defining Decade, Jay argues that our twenties are a developmental sweet spot that comes only once. She also says the cliche "30 is the new 20" trivializes this transformative period. Jay calls on 20-somethings to embrace adulthood in what for many is the defining decade of their lives. But I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, you're broke now (which I was in my twenties so I get it) and I'll be flush with cash later when I make it big (which maybe you will but maybe you won't) so this is something that is just going to have to wait. Our “thirty-is-the-new-twenty” culture tells us the twentysomething years don’t matter. Some say they are an extended adolescence. Others call them an emerging adulthood. In The Defining Decade, Meg Jay argues that twentysomethings have been caught in a swirl of hype and misunderstanding, much of which has trivialized the most transformative time of our lives. The crazy anxiety many people in their 20s have makes them constantly fear being broken up with, fired, dropped. This can lead them to quit or end relationships themselves so that they don’t get surprised. People think that the minute something goes wrong, they’re going to get fired, but jobs aren’t that fragile. Neither are relationships. Jay highlights the difference between school and adults. School requires you to solve clear problems laid before you, adult life requires adapting and finding answers in uncertain situations.

It places too much emphasis on finding a partner/having children/living the traditional "American dream."I strongly recommend The Defining Decade for anyone in their 20s trying to figure out their life's direction. You'll learn how to search productively, how to avoid being indulgent, and how to turn good opportunities into great ones" -- Po Bronson ― author of What Should I Do With My Life? While purporting to be a universal guide for twentysomethings, the premises of each example are built on traditionally white, straight, cis, upperclass conceptions of success and the uncritical recommendations serve to uphold these structures. Even though I am in my late late 20s, I can still see much benefit in the book. The concept of identity capital is something I am finding very useful, and now that I understand it, it pops up in my mind when I am making career choices which is great. I feel it has enhanced and open up my mind, while at the same time making it easy for me to make choices, or at least to understand exactly what it is that I am trading/gaining when I choose one career option over another. A deeply honest investigation of what it means to be a woman and a commodity from Emily Ratajkowski, the archetypal, multi-hyphenate celebrity of our time.