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FOREWORD

Calling Twentysomethings Everywhere

The Defining Decade is for twentysomethings. Even with a subtitle like, “Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now,” this fact is worth stating. Parents assume the book is for parents. Colleagues presume I’ve written it for other therapists and academics. When twentysomethings ask me about my book, “Who is your audience?,” they seem genuinely, but pleasantly, surprised when I say: “YOU ARE!”

It seems astonishing to many that, rather than talk about twentysomethings, I prefer to talk to twentysomethings. Enough of the grownups sitting around discussing the under-thirty set! Twentysomethings are adults too and they deserve to be taken seriously. They deserve a seat at the table in a conversation about their own lives.

Popular culture may lead us to believe that twentysomethings are too cool or too clueless or too lazy or too jaded to engage in such a conversation, but this simply is not true. My private practice and university courses are filled with twentysomethings who desperately want someone to discuss their lives with them in an informed and authentic way. In The Defining Decade, I use research and clinical experience to dispel myths about the twentysomething years: that thirty is the new twenty, that we can’t pick our families, that doing something later is necessarily the same thing as doing something better. But the idea that twentysomethings are not savvy enough to be interested in such information—and the power it has to change their lives—is perhaps the biggest myth of all.

As evidence of this, since The Defining Decade was first published in the United States in April 2012, the book’s biggest and best audience has been twentysomethings themselves. I have received many moving messages from parents who say things like, “All I have asked for Mother’s Day this year is for my twentysomething to read your book.” Or from thirtysomethings who say, “I wish your book had been available when I was in my twenties.” But the most numerous and powerful outpouring has come from twentysomething women and men—from all around the world—who tell me via email or Facebook or Twitter what it has meant to them to be addressed directly.

Here are a few:

I expected The Defining Decade to be cliché and full of ‘carpe diem’ sentiments. I’m so glad to say that I was wrong. To simply say it was life-changing would not suffice. My copy is saturated in highlighter and ink. Everything was relevant. Everything was helpful. Everything in that book spoke to me in a way that no book, parent, friend, or advisor ever has. Though I’d been trying to get my life together, I started trying harder. I gained a new perspective. I made myself a timeline. I recommended your book to all my twentysomething friends and even lent out my copy, scribbles and highlights included. I just finished the book last week and I finished it feeling relieved almost. You are speaking directly to a generation that is often spoken down to or dismissed.

—Tessa V., Istanbul, Turkey

I’m sure you’ve heard it so many times, but I feel that this book was written about me.

—Oded W., Tel Aviv, Israel

This book absolutely nails what it’s like to be a frightened, confused, despairing twentysomething fed useless platitudes about how the world works from movies, newspapers, friends and even parents.

—Michael S., Calgary, Canada

Reading your book was like having someone read a transcript of the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, etc. bouncing through the chamber inside my head.

—Laura S., Los Angeles, USA

Your book speaks to me and about me beat for beat. This is exactly the book I need at this point in my life.

—Krishna D., Sydney, Australia and Jakarta, Indonesia

So the question is—why haven’t these twentysomethings felt spoken to before?

Maybe we can point to current cultural conditions where twentysomethings are mostly patronized and dismissed, and where their identities are often more about being other people’s children than they are about being their own people. But it probably also has something to do with the fact that, as a therapist who specializes in young adults, I get to see a side of twentysomethings that most people do not.

I worked with my first twentysomething psychotherapy client in 1999, and for more than fifteen years I have listened to twentysomethings all day, every day, behind closed doors. Today’s twentysomethings may be pegged as oversharers but what they post on blogs and on social media is far more curated than what they say in my office. So I know some things that most people don’t about twentysomethings—and I even know a few things that twentysomethings don’t know about themselves.

It may sound counterintuitive but, like most people, twentysomethings feel relieved, and even empowered, when someone has the courage to strike up a conversation with the parts of themselves, and the parts of reality, that they are afraid to talk about. I firmly believe that clients—and readers—don’t fear being asked the tough questions; what they really fear is that they won’t be asked the tough questions. When twentysomethings hear what I have to say, the most common reaction is not, “I can’t believe you said that.” It’s, “Why didn’t someone tell me all this sooner?”

Well, new reader, here goes.

Your twenties matter. Two-thirds of lifetime wage growth happens in the first ten years of a career. More than half of us are married, or dating, or living with our future partner, by age thirty; seventy-five percent of us by age thirty-five. Personality changes more during our twenties than at any time before or after. The brain caps off its last growth spurt in the twenties. Fertility peaks in our late twenties and early thirties. Our social networks—and the opportunities they bring—are widest and most diverse in our twenties and narrow as we age.

Altogether, eighty percent of life’s most defining moments take place by age thirty-five so, whether you are twenty or twenty-nine, or somewhere in between, consider the next ten years of your life your defining decade. No, life is not over at thirty or even forty, nor is it ever too late to claim your life. But if, as William James said, intention is the result of attention and choice, it is never too early to start paying attention either.

So, twentysomethings everywhere who want to be more intentional—and parents or bosses or teachers or anyone else who wants to listen in—this conversation and this book are for you.