Why 30 is not the new 20
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0:00 - 0:02When I was in my 20s,
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0:02 - 0:06I saw my very first psychotherapy client.
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0:06 - 0:10I was a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology at Berkeley.
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0:10 - 0:14She was a 26-year-old woman named Alex.
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0:14 - 0:16Now Alex walked into her first session
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0:16 - 0:19wearing jeans and a big slouchy top,
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0:19 - 0:21and she dropped onto the couch in my office
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0:21 - 0:23and kicked off her flats
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0:23 - 0:27and told me she was there to talk about guy problems.
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0:27 - 0:31Now when I heard this, I was so relieved.
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0:31 - 0:34My classmate got an arsonist for her first client.
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0:34 - 0:36(Laughter)
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0:36 - 0:40And I got a twentysomething who wanted to talk about boys.
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0:40 - 0:43This I thought I could handle.
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0:43 - 0:46But I didn't handle it.
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0:46 - 0:48With the funny stories that Alex would bring to session,
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0:48 - 0:50it was easy for me just to nod my head
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0:50 - 0:52while we kicked the can down the road.
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0:52 - 0:55"Thirty's the new 20," Alex would say,
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0:55 - 0:58and as far as I could tell, she was right.
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0:58 - 1:00Work happened later, marriage happened later,
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1:00 - 1:04kids happened later, even death happened later.
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1:04 - 1:08Twentysomethings like Alex and I had nothing but time.
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1:08 - 1:12But before long, my supervisor pushed me
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1:12 - 1:14to push Alex about her love life.
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1:14 - 1:16I pushed back.
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1:16 - 1:18I said, "Sure, she's dating down,
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1:18 - 1:21she's sleeping with a knucklehead,
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1:21 - 1:24but it's not like she's going to marry the guy."
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1:24 - 1:26And then my supervisor said,
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1:26 - 1:31"Not yet, but she might marry the next one.
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1:31 - 1:35Besides, the best time to work on Alex's marriage
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1:35 - 1:38is before she has one."
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1:38 - 1:41That's what psychologists call an "Aha!" moment.
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1:41 - 1:45That was the moment I realized, 30 is not the new 20.
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1:45 - 1:47Yes, people settle down later than they used to,
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1:47 - 1:52but that didn't make Alex's 20s a developmental downtime.
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1:52 - 1:55That made Alex's 20s a developmental sweet spot,
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1:55 - 1:58and we were sitting there blowing it.
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1:58 - 2:02That was when I realized that this sort of benign neglect
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2:02 - 2:06was a real problem, and it had real consequences,
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2:06 - 2:09not just for Alex and her love life
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2:09 - 2:12but for the careers and the families and the futures
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2:12 - 2:15of twentysomethings everywhere.
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2:15 - 2:18There are 50 million twentysomethings
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2:18 - 2:20in the United States right now.
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2:20 - 2:24We're talking about 15 percent of the population,
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2:24 - 2:26or 100 percent if you consider
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2:26 - 2:28that no one's getting through adulthood
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2:28 - 2:31without going through their 20s first.
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2:31 - 2:34Raise your hand if you're in your 20s.
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2:34 - 2:36I really want to see some twentysomethings here.
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2:36 - 2:38Oh, yay! Y'all's awesome.
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2:38 - 2:42If you work with twentysomethings, you love a twentysomething,
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2:42 - 2:44you're losing sleep over twentysomethings, I want to see —
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2:44 - 2:49Okay. Awesome, twentysomethings really matter.
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2:49 - 2:52So I specialize in twentysomethings because I believe
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2:52 - 2:57that every single one of those 50 million twentysomethings
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2:57 - 3:00deserves to know what psychologists,
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3:00 - 3:03sociologists, neurologists and fertility specialists
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3:03 - 3:05already know:
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3:05 - 3:08that claiming your 20s is one of the simplest,
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3:08 - 3:11yet most transformative, things you can do
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3:11 - 3:14for work, for love, for your happiness,
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3:14 - 3:16maybe even for the world.
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3:16 - 3:21This is not my opinion. These are the facts.
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3:21 - 3:24We know that 80 percent of life's most defining moments
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3:24 - 3:27take place by age 35.
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3:27 - 3:31That means that eight out of 10 of the decisions
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3:31 - 3:33and experiences and "Aha!" moments
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3:33 - 3:36that make your life what it is
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3:36 - 3:39will have happened by your mid-30s.
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3:39 - 3:41People who are over 40, don't panic.
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3:41 - 3:43This crowd is going to be fine, I think.
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3:43 - 3:46We know that the first 10 years of a career
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3:46 - 3:48has an exponential impact
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3:48 - 3:51on how much money you're going to earn.
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3:51 - 3:53We know that more than half of Americans
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3:53 - 3:55are married or are living with or dating
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3:55 - 3:58their future partner by 30.
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3:58 - 4:00We know that the brain caps off its second
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4:00 - 4:02and last growth spurt in your 20s
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4:02 - 4:06as it rewires itself for adulthood,
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4:06 - 4:09which means that whatever it is you want to change about yourself,
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4:09 - 4:13now is the time to change it.
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4:13 - 4:16We know that personality changes more during your 20s
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4:16 - 4:18than at any other time in life,
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4:18 - 4:22and we know that female fertility peaks at age 28,
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4:22 - 4:26and things get tricky after age 35.
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4:26 - 4:28So your 20s are the time to educate yourself
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4:28 - 4:33about your body and your options.
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4:33 - 4:35So when we think about child development,
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4:35 - 4:39we all know that the first five years are a critical period
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4:39 - 4:42for language and attachment in the brain.
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4:42 - 4:45It's a time when your ordinary, day-to-day life
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4:45 - 4:50has an inordinate impact on who you will become.
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4:50 - 4:52But what we hear less about is that there's such a thing
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4:52 - 4:55as adult development, and our 20s
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4:55 - 5:00are that critical period of adult development.
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5:00 - 5:03But this isn't what twentysomethings are hearing.
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5:03 - 5:07Newspapers talk about the changing timetable of adulthood.
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5:07 - 5:11Researchers call the 20s an extended adolescence.
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5:11 - 5:14Journalists coin silly nicknames for twentysomethings
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5:14 - 5:16like "twixters" and "kidults."
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5:16 - 5:19It's true.
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5:19 - 5:22As a culture, we have trivialized what is actually
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5:22 - 5:28the defining decade of adulthood.
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5:28 - 5:30Leonard Bernstein said that to achieve great things,
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5:30 - 5:34you need a plan and not quite enough time.
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5:34 - 5:36Isn't that true?
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5:36 - 5:38So what do you think happens
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5:38 - 5:40when you pat a twentysomething on the head and you say,
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5:40 - 5:44"You have 10 extra years to start your life"?
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5:44 - 5:46Nothing happens.
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5:46 - 5:50You have robbed that person of his urgency and ambition,
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5:50 - 5:53and absolutely nothing happens.
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5:53 - 5:56And then every day, smart, interesting twentysomethings
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5:56 - 6:00like you or like your sons and daughters
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6:00 - 6:04come into my office and say things like this:
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6:04 - 6:06"I know my boyfriend's no good for me,
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6:06 - 6:10but this relationship doesn't count. I'm just killing time."
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6:10 - 6:14Or they say, "Everybody says as long as I get started
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6:14 - 6:17on a career by the time I'm 30, I'll be fine."
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6:17 - 6:21But then it starts to sound like this:
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6:21 - 6:24"My 20s are almost over, and I have nothing to show for myself.
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6:24 - 6:29I had a better résumé the day after I graduated from college."
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6:29 - 6:33And then it starts to sound like this:
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6:33 - 6:35"Dating in my 20s was like musical chairs.
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6:35 - 6:37Everybody was running around and having fun,
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6:37 - 6:41but then sometime around 30 it was like the music turned off
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6:41 - 6:43and everybody started sitting down.
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6:43 - 6:45I didn't want to be the only one left standing up,
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6:45 - 6:47so sometimes I think I married my husband
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6:47 - 6:51because he was the closest chair to me at 30."
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6:51 - 6:53Where are the twentysomethings here?
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6:53 - 6:57Do not do that.
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6:57 - 7:01Okay, now that sounds a little flip, but make no mistake,
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7:01 - 7:03the stakes are very high.
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7:03 - 7:05When a lot has been pushed to your 30s,
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7:05 - 7:08there is enormous thirtysomething pressure
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7:08 - 7:11to jump-start a career, pick a city, partner up,
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7:11 - 7:16and have two or three kids in a much shorter period of time.
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7:16 - 7:18Many of these things are incompatible,
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7:18 - 7:20and as research is just starting to show,
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7:20 - 7:23simply harder and more stressful to do
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7:23 - 7:27all at once in our 30s.
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7:27 - 7:29The post-millennial midlife crisis
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7:29 - 7:31isn't buying a red sports car.
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7:31 - 7:36It's realizing you can't have that career you now want.
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7:36 - 7:39It's realizing you can't have that child you now want,
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7:39 - 7:43or you can't give your child a sibling.
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7:43 - 7:46Too many thirtysomethings and fortysomethings
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7:46 - 7:50look at themselves, and at me, sitting across the room,
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7:50 - 7:52and say about their 20s,
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7:52 - 7:57"What was I doing? What was I thinking?"
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7:57 - 7:59I want to change what twentysomethings
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7:59 - 8:01are doing and thinking.
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8:01 - 8:03Here's a story about how that can go.
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8:03 - 8:08It's a story about a woman named Emma.
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8:08 - 8:10At 25, Emma came to my office
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8:10 - 8:15because she was, in her words, having an identity crisis.
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8:15 - 8:17She said she thought she might like to work in art
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8:17 - 8:20or entertainment, but she hadn't decided yet,
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8:20 - 8:25so she'd spent the last few years waiting tables instead.
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8:25 - 8:27Because it was cheaper, she lived with a boyfriend
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8:27 - 8:31who displayed his temper more than his ambition.
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8:31 - 8:33And as hard as her 20s were,
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8:33 - 8:36her early life had been even harder.
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8:36 - 8:38She often cried in our sessions,
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8:38 - 8:40but then would collect herself by saying,
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8:40 - 8:45"You can't pick your family, but you can pick your friends."
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8:45 - 8:47Well one day, Emma comes in
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8:47 - 8:48and she hangs her head in her lap,
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8:48 - 8:52and she sobbed for most of the hour.
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8:52 - 8:54She'd just bought a new address book,
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8:54 - 8:58and she'd spent the morning filling in her many contacts,
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8:58 - 9:01but then she'd been left staring at that empty blank
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9:01 - 9:02that comes after the words
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9:02 - 9:07"In case of emergency, please call ... ."
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9:07 - 9:10She was nearly hysterical when she looked at me and said,
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9:10 - 9:13"Who's going to be there for me if I get in a car wreck?
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9:13 - 9:17Who's going to take care of me if I have cancer?"
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9:17 - 9:20Now in that moment, it took everything I had
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9:20 - 9:22not to say, "I will."
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9:22 - 9:24But what Emma needed wasn't some therapist
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9:24 - 9:26who really, really cared.
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9:26 - 9:32Emma needed a better life, and I knew this was her chance.
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9:32 - 9:35I had learned too much since I first worked with Alex
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9:35 - 9:38to just sit there while Emma's defining decade
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9:38 - 9:41went parading by.
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9:41 - 9:43So over the next weeks and months,
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9:43 - 9:44I told Emma
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9:44 - 9:49three things that every twentysomething, male or female,
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9:49 - 9:52deserves to hear.
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9:52 - 9:56First, I told Emma to forget about having an identity crisis
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9:56 - 9:59and get some identity capital.
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9:59 - 10:02By get identity capital, I mean do something
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10:02 - 10:05that adds value to who you are.
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10:05 - 10:07Do something that's an investment
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10:07 - 10:10in who you might want to be next.
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10:10 - 10:13I didn't know the future of Emma's career,
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10:13 - 10:17and no one knows the future of work, but I do know this:
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10:17 - 10:21Identity capital begets identity capital.
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10:21 - 10:23So now is the time for that cross-country job,
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10:23 - 10:26that internship, that startup you want to try.
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10:26 - 10:30I'm not discounting twentysomething exploration here,
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10:30 - 10:35but I am discounting exploration that's not supposed to count,
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10:35 - 10:38which, by the way, is not exploration.
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10:38 - 10:41That's procrastination.
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10:41 - 10:46I told Emma to explore work and make it count.
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10:46 - 10:52Second, I told Emma that the urban tribe is overrated.
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10:52 - 10:55Best friends are great for giving rides to the airport,
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10:55 - 10:57but twentysomethings who huddle together
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10:57 - 11:00with like-minded peers limit who they know,
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11:00 - 11:04what they know, how they think, how they speak,
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11:04 - 11:06and where they work.
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11:06 - 11:09That new piece of capital, that new person to date
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11:09 - 11:12almost always comes from outside the inner circle.
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11:12 - 11:16New things come from what are called our weak ties,
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11:16 - 11:18our friends of friends of friends.
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11:18 - 11:24So yes, half of twentysomethings are un- or under-employed.
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11:24 - 11:26But half aren't, and weak ties
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11:26 - 11:29are how you get yourself into that group.
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11:29 - 11:31Half of new jobs are never posted,
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11:31 - 11:33so reaching out to your neighbor's boss
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11:33 - 11:36is how you get that un-posted job.
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11:36 - 11:41It's not cheating. It's the science of how information spreads.
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11:41 - 11:43Last but not least, Emma believed that
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11:43 - 11:47you can't pick your family, but you can pick your friends.
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11:47 - 11:49Now this was true for her growing up,
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11:49 - 11:52but as a twentysomething, soon Emma would pick her family
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11:52 - 11:54when she partnered with someone
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11:54 - 11:57and created a family of her own.
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11:57 - 12:02I told Emma the time to start picking your family is now.
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12:02 - 12:04Now you may be thinking that 30
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12:04 - 12:06is actually a better time to settle down
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12:06 - 12:10than 20, or even 25,
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12:10 - 12:11and I agree with you.
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12:11 - 12:14But grabbing whoever you're living with or sleeping with
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12:14 - 12:17when everyone on Facebook starts walking down the aisle
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12:17 - 12:21is not progress.
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12:21 - 12:23The best time to work on your marriage
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12:23 - 12:25is before you have one,
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12:25 - 12:27and that means being as intentional with love
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12:27 - 12:30as you are with work.
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12:30 - 12:32Picking your family is about consciously choosing
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12:32 - 12:35who and what you want
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12:35 - 12:38rather than just making it work or killing time
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12:38 - 12:42with whoever happens to be choosing you.
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12:42 - 12:44So what happened to Emma?
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12:44 - 12:46Well, we went through that address book,
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12:46 - 12:48and she found an old roommate's cousin
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12:48 - 12:52who worked at an art museum in another state.
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12:52 - 12:54That weak tie helped her get a job there.
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12:54 - 12:57That job offer gave her the reason
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12:57 - 12:59to leave that live-in boyfriend.
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12:59 - 13:03Now, five years later, she's a special events planner for museums.
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13:03 - 13:06She's married to a man she mindfully chose.
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13:06 - 13:09She loves her new career, she loves her new family,
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13:09 - 13:11and she sent me a card that said,
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13:11 - 13:14"Now the emergency contact blanks
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13:14 - 13:17don't seem big enough."
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13:17 - 13:20Now Emma's story made that sound easy,
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13:20 - 13:22but that's what I love about working with twentysomethings.
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13:22 - 13:25They are so easy to help.
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13:25 - 13:29Twentysomethings are like airplanes just leaving LAX,
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13:29 - 13:31bound for somewhere west.
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13:31 - 13:34Right after takeoff, a slight change in course
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13:34 - 13:39is the difference between landing in Alaska or Fiji.
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13:39 - 13:45Likewise, at 21 or 25 or even 29,
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13:45 - 13:48one good conversation, one good break,
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13:48 - 13:51one good TED Talk, can have an enormous effect
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13:51 - 13:55across years and even generations to come.
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13:55 - 13:58So here's an idea worth spreading
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13:58 - 14:00to every twentysomething you know.
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14:00 - 14:03It's as simple as what I learned to say to Alex.
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14:03 - 14:05It's what I now have the privilege
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14:05 - 14:10of saying to twentysomethings like Emma every single day:
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14:10 - 14:14Thirty is not the new 20, so claim your adulthood,
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14:14 - 14:18get some identity capital, use your weak ties,
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14:18 - 14:20pick your family.
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14:20 - 14:23Don't be defined by what you didn't know
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14:23 - 14:24or didn't do.
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14:24 - 14:27You're deciding your life right now.
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14:27 - 14:28Thank you.
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14:28 - 14:32(Applause)
- Title:
- Why 30 is not the new 20
- Speaker:
- Meg Jay
- Description:
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Clinical psychologist Meg Jay has a bold message for twentysomethings: Contrary to popular belief, your 20s are not a throwaway decade. In this provocative talk, Jay says that just because marriage, work and kids are happening later in life, doesn’t mean you can’t start planning now. She gives 3 pieces of advice for how twentysomethings can re-claim adulthood in the defining decade of their lives.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 14:49
Camille Martínez edited English subtitles for Why 30 is not the new 20 | ||
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for Why 30 is not the new 20 | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Why 30 is not the new 20 | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Why 30 is not the new 20 | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for Why 30 is not the new 20 | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Why 30 is not the new 20 | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for Why 30 is not the new 20 | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for Why 30 is not the new 20 |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 2/25/2015.