Ever feel like you’re not quite an “adult” yet? Trust us when we say we have that feeling on the regular. It’s partly because we think this one decade doesn’t really matter when we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us. But that’s where we’re wrong. We think we have much more time to get our lives—and ourselves—figured out than we actually do. However, when we procrastinate on making these inevitable life choices, we aren’t realized the lasting effects on our lives down the line. So while we know our 20s are about finding ourselves, we’re also aware that we can put this soul-searching off until tomorrow or the day after that and so on. And that’s a critical mistake, according to Dr. Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist who specializes in adult development and in 20-somethings in particular. In her new book The Defining Decade, Dr. Meg Jay explains that 80 percent of life’s most consequential events (getting married, having kids, becoming financially stable, buying a house, etc.) take place by age 35. Here, she shares with us how to make the most out of your 20s as well as encouraging us to take those steps which will lead us to where we want to be in the future.
Life2PointOh: Let’s start with the basis of your book. Why do we think our 20s don’t matter or aren’t as important as these years really are?
Dr. Meg Jay: Twenty-somethings have all heard that people marry later than they used to, they settle down later, establish careers later, and even die later. This is all true. But it has also led to the 20s being perceived as a sort of developmental Las Vegas—a time when what we do doesn’t matter or when our choices don’t count. We hear that 30 is the new 20, but nothing could be further from the truth. Our 20s aren’t an irrelevant downtime; they are a developmental sweetspot.
Life2PointOh: How do we change this perception?
Dr. Meg Jay: Educate yourself. Our 20s are the critical period of adulthood. Eighty percent of life’s most consequential events take place by age 35. About two-thirds of lifetime wage growth happens during the first ten years of a career. More than half of us are married, dating, or living with their future partner by 30. Our personalities change more during our 20s than at any time before or after. Fertility peaks in our 20s. Even our brain caps off its last growth spurt in our 20s. So these are the years when the things we do, and the things we don’t do, will have an enormous impact across years and even generations to come.
Life2PointOh: How is this mindset affecting the career paths and relationships 20-somethings have?
Dr. Meg Jay: People postpone making choices and commitments at work and in love because they imagine that have nothing but time. They perceive that doing something later is automatically the same thing as doing something better. But 30 is not the new 20. And not making choices is a choice all the same. Too many 30-somethings feel betrayed as they realize that they now don’t have the career and relationship choices they imagined they would. They look at me and say about their 20s, “What was I thinking? What was I doing?”
Life2PointOh: Why has it become a challenge for 20-somethings to make these career and relationship-related decisions and really go after what they want?
Dr. Meg Jay: Twenty-somethings are between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, they’ve grown up hearing “You can do anything!” which is more confusing than it is confidence-building. On the other hand, with the economy what it is, they now perceive that they’re hearing, “There is nothing you can do!” Reality is, of course, somewhere in between. No one can do anything, so our 20s are when we take an inventory of where our talents and interests lie and we start there—even in a bad economy. I’m surrounded by 20-somethings who have jobs, even good jobs.
Life2PointOh: What should 20-somethings be doing now to further along their careers, especially with the job market as tough as it right now?
Dr. Meg Jay: Of course we’ve all heard that about half of recent college grads are unemployed or underemployed. But half aren’t, so figure out how to get yourself into that half. And recognize that if, like many 20-somethings, you are going to be underemployed, not all underemployment is the same—some has identity capital and some doesn’t. Be sure that your underemployment is earning you the capital that will help you get the next job. How? I once had a fortune cookie that said, “A wise man makes his own luck.” The single best thing a 20-something can do to make his/her own luck and to find that starter job is to look outside of his close circle of friends. The 20s are portrayed as a time when you mostly huddle together with your best friends, but that group of friends is usually a homogeneous clique. New information and new opportunities—even new people to date—almost always come from outside the inner circle. That job break is not going to come from sending out hundreds of resumes and trolling websites, but from emailing your aunt’s neighbor or your old professor or that friend of a friend from high school. A lot of 20-somethings hate the idea of asking outsiders for favors, but those who won’t do this fall behind those who will. That’s how people are getting jobs even in this economy.
Life2PointOh: Let’s switch over to relationships now. You talk about ‘dating down’ in your book? Why is this a problem and what effect does this have on a person’s self-worth?
Dr. Meg Jay: Many of my clients willingly have low-criteria or no-criteria relationships because, since they plan to marry later, say at 30, they don’t think who they date in their 20s matters. But dating down can be dangerous when it teaches us all the wrong things about relationships. Or when suddenly that person we never had any intention of staying with starts to look better than starting over when we do hit 30. When a 28-year–old woman (who began therapy by telling me that looks and sex were all that mattered to her in dating) said one afternoon, “I‘ve finally realized this isn’t some game. My next relationship could be my last one,” I wanted to cry tears of joy.
Life2PointOh: That’s a big step forward for that woman. Relating to that progression, what should 20-somethings be doing now to get the life they want in the future?
Dr. Meg Jay: Be more informed and intentional about your 20-something life. Earn some identity capital. Cultivate contacts beyond your comfort zone. Do the math and make a timeline for the life you want. Realize that you do pick your family and not just your friends. Know that dating and cohabiting in your 20s matter. Learn the facts about fertility. Learn to manage your emotions at work and in love. Whatever it is you want to change about yourself, do it now.
Life2PointOh: And how should one start to figure out what kind of life it is that he/she wants?
Dr. Meg Jay: Do something. Sure, Socrates was right that the unexamined life isn’t worth living. But American psychologist Sheldon Kopp was maybe even more right on when he said, “The unlived life isn’t worth examining.” Too many 20-somethings have heard that they need to figure out with certainty what they want to do and then they can start doing it. These 20-somethings have it backward. The way to figure out what you want is to do something. And if that doesn’t work out, then you do something else.
Life2PointOh: You mentioned earlier that the brain’s last growth spurt happens in your 20s. What does that mean and how does this affect our individual thought-process?
Dr. Meg Jay: Our 20s are the capstone of the brain’s last growth spurt, which means that these years are wiring us to be the adults we will be. The frontal lobe is the last area of the brain to develop and it does not fully mature until sometime during our 20s. This is the area of the brain where we tackle the tasks many 20-somethings struggle with—facing uncertainty, solving problems that don’t have black-and-white answers, anticipating consequences, managing our emotions. Unfortunately, this fact about the late-maturing frontal lobe has been interpreted as a directive for 20-somethings to wait around until their brains grow-up. Then life will be certain! But that’s not how life works and it’s not how the brain works. Life is never going to be certain. We either get better at handling uncertainty during our 20s when our brain is learning quickly, or we don’t.
Life2PointOh: That’s very interesting, and it leads me to my last question. Since we’ve established that 30 is not the new 20, what life experiences should a person look forward to in their 20s compared to what’s ahead in their future?
Dr. Meg Jay: Twenty-somethings should look forward to the fact that, contrary to what clichés and movies lead us to believe, our 20s are not the best years of our lives. Thank goodness, right? Many (if not most) 20-somethings are actually quite miserable. Life gets better across our 20s and 30s. On average, we become more emotionally stable, happier, less anxious, more competent, and more confident. But these changes don’t happen for everyone. They come from what researchers call “getting along and getting ahead.” Life gets better and we become happier as we find our footing at work and have some financial success and create stable relationships both on the job and back in our apartments.
Thanks, Dr. Jay! It’s a relief to know we have a lot to look forward to after our 20s.
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