The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter — And How to Make the Most of Them NOW.

About the author. Mag Jay — Clinical Psychologist, and an Associate Professor of Human Development at the University of Virginia, who specializes in adult development and in twentysomethings is the author of the book I want to cover in this article.

10 years ago she wrote a book that might be relevant in today’s world for today’s twenty to thirtysometings. I decided to read it because I am in the middle of my twentysomething period and I was curious to see how the author perceives this period. This book is definitely not a life-changer for me but rather a source of inspiration. I observe that often contemporary culture puts this period in the following context:

• Twentysomething years don’t matter and these years are too cool to make important decisions;
• Thirty is the new twenty and people do things later than they used to;
• It’s too early to pick our families in our 20s;
• When you are twentysomething you need to keep hooking up and see what sticks.

Here’s why above phrases might not be correct.

First of all, your twenties matter. Eighty percent of life’s most defining moments take place by age 35. In the book author convinces that thirty is not the new twenty and why twenties is the most critical and defining decade in a person’s life.

I will give a summary for three key sections: Work, Love, The brain and the body.

WORK. Identity capital is our collection of personal assets. These are investments we make in ourselves, the things we do well enough, or long enough, that they become a part of who we are. Most importantly, identity capital is what we bring to the adult marketplace.

It is scary to pursue something that you really want to do. You might fail. Do it anyway. You will either end up doing something you love or be better equipped to make a different choice.

Also, sometimes we use “shoulds” and “supposed to’s” that literate imaginations of us like these: my work is supposed to be WOW, we should graduate from school, my life should look better than it is. Shoulds are paralysing judgments while goals direct us from inside. We tend to mark ourselves as not-this or not-that but self-definition cannot end there. An identity or a career cannot be built around what you think you don’t want. Instead of being against: “I do not want job from 9–5”, we should figure out what we like to do. The first step in establishing a professional identity is calming our interests and talents, then claim the story about it and narrative we can use for job interviews or networking.

LOVE. Today’s twentysomethings spend more time single than any generation in history. The average age for first. marriage is 26 for women and 28 for men. It seems too conventional to be strategic about such things. Whom you marry is the most important decision in your life. But again, doing something later (getting married) is not necessarily the same as doing something better (live happy life together and die on one day). Older spouses may be more mature but later marriage has its own challenges. Rather than growing together while their twentysomething selves are still forming, partners who marry older may be more set in their ways.

I often hear: it’s too early to get married in my twentysomething, but I would better not be alone at thirty. This Age thirty deadline is such a funny thing as everything that was OK at twentysomething suddenly feels awful. I always wondered how almost overnight commitment changes from being something for later become being something fit yesterday.

Being choosy about the right partner is a right decision. Besides like with work, good relationships don’t just appear when we are ready, it may take a few thoughtful tries before we know what love and commitment really are.

Being single while you’re young may be glorified in the press, but staying single across the twenties does not typically feel good. A study that tracked men and women from their early twenties to their later twenties found that of those who remained single — who dated or hooked up but avoided commitments — 80 percent were dissatisfied with their dating lives and only 10 percent didn’t wish they had a partner.

THE BRAIN AND THE BODY. Research shows that people don’t change much after they reach 30. Personality changes in the age of 20s more than any other period of life. Hence, this is the best chance for us to form our ideal traits, to be who we really want to be for the rest of our time.

Also in this chapter Meg explains the problem of fertility and how modern marriages and partnerships are affected by later childbearing and child rearing. Biologically speaking, the twenties will be the easiest time to have a baby for most women. She gives the numbers of the cost of fertility intervention for a twentysomething couple which is $25,000, by 35 the cost might be $35,000 and after 40 the cost goes up to $300,000 for a baby. Even if money isn’t an obstacle, nature may still be. Fertility may seem like a women’s issue, but as more couples have their first child in their 30–40s timing affects everybody.

Epilogue is great! Meg gives an example of the big Rocky Mountain National Park sign on mountains that says: MOUNTAINS DON’T CARE. It’s about preparedness and it is about educating mountain-goers about proper equipment. The best part about being in 20s is knowing how your life worked out!

By avoiding important decisions now we keep all of our options open for later- but not making choices is a choice to begin with. Just think how it might be a massive pressure to do all the following things in your thirties: buy a house, get married, make money, choose a city, graduate from university, get a promotion, start a business, save for retirement, have two children. Doing something later is not automatically the same as doing something better. Meg Jay had thousands of thirty\fortysometing patients who came to her room with the words: «What was I doing?» or «What was I thinking?»

WHERE YOU CAN FIND THE BOOK? AMAZON FOR 10£, click!.

The future isn’t written in the stars. There are no guarantees. So claim your adulthood. Be intentional. Get to work. Pick your family. Do the math. Make your own certainty. Don’t be defined by what you didn’t know or didn’t do. You are deciding your life right now.