My Key Takeaways from The Defining Decade by Meg Jay, Ph.D.
Introduction
I randomly stumbled upon a TED talk by Meg Jay and enjoyed watching her speak about why the 20s matter for some life-changing decisions. Meg Jay is a clinical psychologist who specializes in adult development.
As I enter my late 20s, I have some important decisions to make in life and want to seek some advice from the book, The Defining Decade. I’m really enjoying it so far.
In the book, the author gives advice on important decisions to make for twentysomethings based on her therapy sessions, research papers, and facts.
Part 1 will highlight a few key takeaways that resonated with me a lot from the book as I read halfway through. I hope this brings a fresh perspective to your life.
The Cohabitation Effect
In Western society, it has been prevalent in our generation to see a couple in a long-term relationship move in together before marriage so this topic resonates with me a lot.
One of the therapy sessions she wrote about is the therapy session with Jennifer who just filed for divorce after 6 months into the marriage. Jennifer and Carter shared common interests: they like to party and go to concerts. Other people would label them as the coolest, hippiest couple in the crowd. They lived together for more than 3 years but as the realities set in such as mortgage calculations, factoring in children, and others, the marriage started to fall apart. Carter did not have a stable career and was not willing to compromise on moving to a city with a lower cost of living. Jennifer hoped to work part-time so she could take care of the children but he would need to make more money. How did this happen even after living together for 3 years?
The author gives several analogies to cohabitation:
- A “good test” before marriage
- Try before you buy
- Drifting into staying together
- Quicksand (sliding into cohabitation is easy. It’s harder to get out.)
- Lock-in with high setup cost and switching cost (once living together, it’s much harder to break apart as there are more shared costs.)
When asked about the criteria for moving in together, Jennifer said “good sex, fun weekends, cool crowd, and cheaper rent”. The author put this as an intersection between a college roommate and a sex partner. This sounds a bit harsh in my opinion but there are some truths to this: they did not have a conversation about the mortgage for the house they may live in, trying to conceive a child, getting up in the night with kids, saving for college and retirement, or seeing each other’s paychecks and credit card bills.
Backed by some research, the author argues that getting engaged before living together will have a better outcome than one without because it has an explicit and matching level of commitment. Also, it makes sense to check in with yourself by anticipating and periodically evaluating the constraints that may keep you from leaving even if you want to.
Picking Your Family
I used to think that a marriage should be a commitment between two individuals. As long as my partner and I are happy, we should be good. The author says that that can be true but what is also true is that marriage is about joining families as well.
Picking your family is realizing you have choices and owning them rather than pointing the finger at, waiting around for luck or fate or chemistry.
Emma, who has a good career and is well-liked by people around her, grew up in a broken family. Her father ran into debt, lost his job, and later committed suicide, and her mother was an alcoholic. Because of this, Emma was very driven and ambitious because she wanted to have a really good job to be independent and support her mother. In contrast, her boyfriend hated work, watched TV a lot, and could be easily jealous and scream at her. At 30, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to have a family. She wasn’t psyched about her boyfriend’s family either: neither of his parents was interested in her when she visited them on weekends. The author pointed out, “How can you be so ambitious about work but so unambitious about relationships?”. Emma ended the relationship with her boyfriend and decided to be more ambitious about love, take it more seriously like her job, and vowed to herself to be a better parent to her future children and create a better family. After 3 years, she did find someone to start the family she dreamed of.
If you can’t stand your partner’s family, it’s not going to be good for the relationship and is a serious consideration for whether or not you should continue.
Weak Ties
“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.” — Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Google
Urban tribe — As the author put it — is an incestuous and homogenous group of friends who reply to our texts, give rides to the airport or to music festivals, and vent about bad dates on the weekends. They are the most supportive figures in our 20s but not the most transformative. The author argues that those who are not in the tribe will drastically change our lives for the better.
Stanford professor and sociologist, Mark Granovetter was curious about how networks foster social mobility and how people in our lives allow us to move up and around. Based on his research, The Strength of Weak Ties, Granovetter argues that not all relationships are the same: some are strong and some are weak. The strength of the tie increases with more time and experience.
Strong ties feel comfortable and familiar but sometimes other than support and sympathy, they have little to offer. They usually don’t know more about jobs and relationships than we do. On the other hand, weak ties feel too different from ours. They give us something fresh: new information, new opportunities, new ideas, and even new people to date. Weak ties have perspectives we may not have considered, and there is no telling where conversations with them might lead.
In our 20s and beyond, people who you don’t know well can change your life for the better if you have the courage to know what you want.
Live your life to the fullest,
Stephen Sungsoo Lee
