30 is NOT the new 20: Top psychologist says 20-somethings are damaging future career and relationships by treating decade as 'downtime' before real life begins



In a recent TED talk, clinical psychologist Dr Meg Jay says this idea causes 20-somethings to become passive, since they believe they have plenty of time to build their careers and find love later in life

Dr Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist based in Charlottesville, Virginia, has disputed the notion that 30 is the new 20, asserting that this idea causes 20-somethings to become passive, since they believe they have plenty of time to build their careers and find love later in life.

In her February TED Talk, Dr Jay advises people to 'claim their twenties' by investing in who they want to be, expanding their inner circle and finding out what kind of person they want to marry sooner, rather than later.

'Claiming your twenties is one of the simplest yet most transformative things you can do for work, for love, for your happiness, maybe even for the world,' said Dr Jay as she spoke at the TED2013 conference in Long Beach, California.



Why 30 is not the new 20: Clinical psychologist Dr Meg Jay explains that a person's twenties is the most important and formative decade of adulthood - far from the 'extended adolescence' it is often perceived as

Dr Jay, an assistant clinical professor at the Curry School of Education, said that our culture is to blame for the way a person's twenties is now perceived as 'developmental downtime'.

'Journalists coin silly nicknames for 20-somethings like "twixters" and "kidults,"' she explained. 'As a culture, we have trivialized what is actually the defining decade of adulthood.'

Even though the media portrays a person's twenties as something of an 'extended adolescence', this decade is, in fact, a 'developmental sweet spot,' explains Dr Jay, whereby people can change their personalities and alter their destinies.

She cites the fact that the first ten years of someone's career has an exponential impact on how much money they will earn later in life, and that your personality changes more in your twenties than at any other time in life.

She also explained that the human brain has its second and final growth spurt in a person's twenties, as it 're-wires itself for adulthood'.

This, according to Dr Jay, means that 'whatever it is you want to change about yourself, now is the time to change it.'

'Claim your twenties': In her TED talk, Dr Jay tells 20-somethings: 'Whatever it is you want to change about yourself, now is the time to change it'

When you tell a 20-something they have ten more years to figure their lives out, you are, in effect, 'robbing that person of his urgency and ambition,' says Dr Jay.

And since all the pressure is being taken off people in their twenties, a huge amount is being transferred to those in their thirties, who suddenly have to find a partner, decide on a city to live in, build a career and have children, all in a short period of time.

While Dr Jay encourages women to work on their careers earlier in life, she also believes a woman should choose her life partner - or, at least, the type of person she wants to marry - in her twenties.

' The best time to start working on your marriage is before you have one,' she said. 'And that means being as intentional with love as you are with work.

'Make no mistake, the stakes are very high,' warned Dr Jay, recounting some of her patients who came to her after marrying their husbands on a whim once they reached 30, when dating was suddenly no longer like 'a game of musical chairs'.



' The time to start picking your family is now,' she advises 20-somethings.

'But grabbing whoever you're living with or sleeping with when everyone on Facebook starts walking down the aisle is NOT progress,' she adds.

Throughout her talk, Dr Jay refers to several of her patients to illustrate her points, one of whom, a woman named Emma, came to her at age 25 claiming she was having an identity crisis.

Dr Jay advised Emma to 'forget having an identity crisis and get some identity capital.

' The best time to start working on your marriage is before you have one '

'Do something that adds value to who you are,' she elaborates. '[Something] that's an investment in who you might want to be next.'

She also said that one of the most valuable pieces of advice a 20-something can take to heart is to expand their inner circle, and use their 'weak ties', or those whom they are loosely connected to.

20-somethings who only stick with like-minded peers limit 'who they know, what they know, how they think, how they speak and where they work,' she explained.

New and good things come from new people, she says, from friends of friends who may be out of our comfort zone.



'30 is NOT the new 20,' concluded Dr Jay. 'So claim your adulthood, get some identity capital, use your weak ties, pick your family.



'Don't be defined by what you didn't know or didn't do. You're deciding your life right now,' she stated.

