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

doing something later is not automatically the same as doing something better.

If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are. —Charles de Montesquieu, writer/philosopher

those who are underemployed for as little as nine months tend to be more depressed and less motivated than their peers—than even their unemployed peers.

Twentysomethings who take the time to explore and also have the nerve to make commitments along the way construct stronger identities.

Twentysomething jobs teach us about regulating our emotions and negotiating the complicated social interactions that make up adult life. Twentysomething work and school are our best chance to acquire the technical, sophisticated skills needed in so many careers today. Twentysomething relationships prepare us for marriage and other partnerships. Twe

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.

Working toward our potential becomes what psychoanalyst and developmental theorist Karen Horney called “a search for glory” when, somehow, we learn more about what is ideal than about what is real.

I saw that bigness came from investing in what I had, from taking part in what was in front of me.

Feeling better, then, doesn’t come from avoiding adulthood. It comes from investing in adulthood.