The Defining Decade is a book that details “why your twenties matter and how to make the most of them now.” This book is written by Dr. Meg Jay, PhD, and claims that “...twentysomethings have been caught in a swirl of hype and misunderstanding, much of which has trivialized what is actually the most transformative time of our lives”. Please enjoy ‘twentysomething’ quotes from this book that made an impact on my life.
Your twenties matter. Eighty percent of life’s most defining moments take place by the age of thirty-five (xvii)
I have seen countless twentysomethings spend too many years living without perspective (xxiii)
We think that by avoiding decisions now, we keep all of our options open for later (xxxii)
[Your twentysomething years] are a time when we are primed for growth and change when simple exposure can lead to dramatic transformation (xxxiii)
Identity capital is our stock of personal assets. It is how we add value to who we are, and it is what we have to show for how we have spent our time…identity capital is how we build ourselves, bit by bit, over time (6)
I felt a lot of internal pressure to figure it out, but all the thinking I did was really debilitating and unproductive. 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 (16)
The strength of weak ties is the science of how information spreads. It is about how people who do deserve chances or opportunities let other people help them find those chances or opportunities (26)
It is scary to realize that you can’t just wait around, that no one can really rescue you, and that you- and only you- just have to do something (34)
Unthought knowns are those things we know about ourselves but forget somehow; they are dreams we have lost sight of or the truths we sense but don’t say out loud (40)
…sometimes, it feels easier not to know, not to choose, and not to do (41)
…often the first thing we know about ourselves is not what we are- it’s what we aren’t (62)
…you can’t just pull some great career out of a hat in your thirties. You’ve got to start in your twenties (64)
…doing something later is not necessarily the same as doing something better (80)
There is something scary about picking your family. It’s not romantic. It means you aren’t just waiting for your soul mate to arrive. It means you know you are making decisions that will affect the rest of your life. It means you are thinking about the fact that your relationship needs to work not only in the here and now but also in the there and then (96)
Things get better only when we let new and better people in. Things get better when we let new and better people care about us or love us… (112)
Everyone has gaps in their reasoning. If you stop and shine a light on these mental ellipses, you find assumptions that drive behavior without our being aware of them (117)
The best time to work on your marriage is before you have one… (127)
A long-term partnership is an ongoing exercise in communication and negotiation (139)
Never again will it be so easy to become the people we hope to be (161)
“The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook” -William James (184)
…[you] may not have control over every situation, but [you] have control [over] how [you] interpret those situations and how [you] respond to them (188)
Knowing you want to do something isn’t the same as knowing how to do it (195)
Who we are affects what we do, and what we do affects who we are, over and over again (200)