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Meg Jay Biography

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“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 and years, but no clear way to know when or why any one thing should happen. It can be a disorienting, cave-like existence. As one twentysomething astutely put it, "The twentysomething years are a whole new way of thinking about time. There's this big chunk of time and a whole bunch of stuff that needs to happen somehow.”

LifeChoicesMillennials
Book:The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now
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“If the first step in establishing a professional identity is claiming our interests and talents, then the next step is claiming a story about our interests and talents, a narrative we can take with us to interviews and coffee dates (...) a story that balances complexity and cohesion is frankly, diagnostic.”

ChoicesStorytellingMillennials
Book:The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now
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“Ian pretended that not knowing what to do was the hard part when, somewhere inside, I think he knew that making a choice about something is when the real uncertainty begins. The more terrifying uncertainty is wanting something and not knowing how to get it. It is working toward something even though there is no sure thing. When we make choices, we open ourselves up to hard work and failure and heartbreak, so sometimes it feels easier not to know, not to choose, and not to do.”

LifeChoicesWorkFailureHeartbreakDecisionsUncertaintyTwentysomethings
Book:The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now
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“Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids. Even if it's a bit edgy, a bit out of your comfort zone, saying yes means you will do something new, meet someone new, and make a difference.”

PsychologySelf HelpNonfiction
Book:The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--and How to Make the Most of Them Now in Vietnamese
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“Real confidence comes from mastery experiences, which are actual, lived moments of success, especially when things seem difficult. Whether we are talking about love or work, the confidence that overrides insecurity comes from experience. There is no other way.”

ConfidenceExperience20s
Book:The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—And How to Make the Most of Them Now
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“The Great Recession and its continuing aftermath have left many twenty-somethings feeling naïve, even devastated.Twenty-somethings are more educated than ever before, but a smaller percentage find work after college. Many entry-level jobs have gone overseas, making it more difficult for twenty-somethings to gain a foothold at home. With a contracting economy and a growing population, unemployment is at its highest in decades. An unpaid internship is the new starter job. About a quarter of twenty-somethings are out of work and another quarter work only part-time. Twenty-somethings who do have paying jobs earn less than their 1970s counterparts when adjusted for inflation.”

EconomyYoung AdultsHard Truth
Book:The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now
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“But while the urban tribe helps us survive, it does not help us thrive. The urban tribe may bring us soup when we are sick, but it is the people we hardly know - those who never make it into our tribe - who will swiftly and dramatically change our lives for the better.”

LifeInspirationChangeFamilyFriendsTwentiesAdultImprove
Book:The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now
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“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 or you get robbed. Someone gets sick or sunburned. You get bored. It is harder than you expected, but you are glad you didn't just sit home.”

RelationshipsMarriageTravel
Book:The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now
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“In one way or another, almost every twentysomething client I have wonders, 'Will things work out for me?' The uncertainty behind that question is what makes twentysomething life so difficult, but it is also what makes twentysomething action so possible and so necessary. It's unsettling to not know the future and, in a way, even more daunting to consider that what we are doing with our twentysomething lives might be determining it.”

LifeAdviceFutureCareerTwentysomethings
Book:The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter - And How to Make the Most of Them Now
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