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

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Alex was twenty-six, dating a man she had no intention of marrying, and Meg Jay — then a clinical psychology doctoral student at Berkeley — was happy to let her keep telling funny stories about him. Thirty is the new twenty, Alex kept saying. Then Jay’s supervisor made the point that reorganizes the whole book: she might not marry this one, but she might marry the next one, and the best time to work on a marriage is before you have one. The twenties are not a developmental holding pattern. They are the window when the big decisions are cheapest to make and most expensive to skip.

Meg Jay on SummaryShelf

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