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When I was in my 20s, I saw my
very first psychotherapy client. I was a Ph.D.
student
in clinical psychology at
Berkeley. She was a 26-year-old woman named Alex.
Now
Alex
walked
into
her
first
session,
wearing
jeans
and
a
big
slouchy
top,
and
she
dropped
onto
the
couch
in
my
office
and
kicked
off
her
flats
and
told
me
she
was
there
to
talk
about
guy
problems.
Now
when
I
heard
this,
I
was
so
relieved.
My
classmate
got
an
arsonist
for
her
first
client.
And
I
got
a
twenty-something
who
wanted to talk about boys. This I
thought I could handle. But I didn't handle it.
With the funny stories that Alex would
bring to session, it was easy for me just to nod
my head while we kicked the can down
the road.
say, and as far as I could
tell, she was right. Work happened later, marriage
happened
later,
kids
happened
later,
even
death
happened
later.
Twenty-something
like
Alex
and I had nothing but
time. But before long, my supervisor pushed me to
push Alex
about her love life. I pushed
back. I said,
a knucklehead, but it's
not like she's going to marry the
guy.
said,
Alex's
marriage
is
before
she
has
one.
what
psychologists
call
an
moment. That
was a moment I realized,30 is not the new , people
settle down
later
than
they
used
to,
but
that
didn’t
make
Alex’s
20
s
a
developmental
made
Alex's
20s
a
developmental
sweet
spot,
and
we
were
sitting
there blowing it. That was when I
realized that this sort of benign neglect was a
real
problem, and it had real
consequences, not just for Alex and her love life
but for the
careers and the families
and the futures of twenty-somethings everywhere.
There are 50 million twenty-somethings
in the United States right now. We're talking
about 15 percent of the population, or
100 percent if you consider that no one's getting
through adulthood without going through
their 20s first.
I specialize in
twenty-somethings because I believe that every
single one of those 50
million
twenty-somethings
deserves
to
know
what
psychologists,
sociologists,
neurologists and fertility specialists
already know that claiming your 20s is one of the
simplest,
yet
most
transformative,
things
you
can
do
for
work,
for
love,
for
your
happiness, maybe even
for the world. This is not my opinion. These are
the facts.
We know that 80 percent of
life's most defining moments take place by age
means that eight out of 10 of the
decisions and experiences and
make your life what it is will have
happened by your mid-30s. People who are over 40,
don't panic. This crowd is going to be
fine, I think we know that the first 10 years of a
career has an exponential impact on how
much money you're going to earn. We know
that more than half of Americans are
married or are living with or dating their future
partner by know that the brain caps
off its second and last growth spurt in your
20s
as
it
rewires
itself
for
adulthood
which
means
that
whatever
it
is
you
want
to
change
about
yourself,
now
is
the
time
to
change
it.
We
know
that
personality
changes more
during your 20s than at any other time in life,
and we know that female
fertility peaks
at age 28,and things get tricky after age your
20s are the time to
educate
yourself
about
your
body
and
your
options.
So
when
we
think
about
child
development, we all know that the first
five
years are a critical period for
language
and
attachment
in
the
brain.
It's
a
time
when
your
ordinary,
day-to-day
life
has
an
inordinate impact on who you will
become.
But what we hear less about is
that there's such a thing as adult development,
and our
20s
are
that
critical
period
of
adult
development.
But
this
isn't
what
twenty-
somethings are
hearing. Newspapers talk about the changing
timetable of adulthood.
Researchers
call the 20s an extended adolescence. Journalists
coin silly nicknames for
twenty-
somethings
like
and
It's
true.
As
a
culture,
we
have
trivialized what is actually the
defining decade of adulthood. Leonard Bernstein
said
that to achieve great things, you
need a plan and not quite enough time. Isn't that
true?
So what do you think happens when
you pat a twenty-something on the head and you
say,
Nothing
happens.
You
have
robbed
that
person
of
his
urgency
and
ambition,
and
absolutely nothing happens. And then
every day, smart, interesting twenty-somethings
like
you
or
like
your
sons
and
daughters
come
into
my
office
and
say
things
like
this:
just killing
time.
the time I'm 30, I'll be
fine.
over,
and
I
have
nothing
to
show
for
myself.
I
had
a
better
ré
sumé
the
day
after
I
graduated from
college.
And
then
it
starts
to
sound
like
this:
in
my
20s
was
like
musical
chairs.
Everybody was running around and having
fun, but then sometime around 30 it was