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Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s.
The podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our
20s and what they mean for our psychology.
Hello everybody.
Welcome back to the show.
Welcome back to the podcast.
New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world.
It is so great to have you here back for another episode, back for another topic and today
back for another guest episode.
I love doing these every now and again and I'm super selective with the people that I bring
on because I want them to really have something to say about the 20s something experience about
what it means to be growing up during this time and at this age and during this decade.
I feel like one of the main experiences a lot of us have, one of the universal 20s something
experiences is feeling incredibly behind and incredibly lost.
And today we are bringing on someone who has spoken a lot about this who has written numerous
books about this experience.
Dr. Meg J. Thank you so much for joining us.
It's my pleasure Gemma.
I'm so glad to be here.
So if you don't know who Meg is, you've definitely heard of her work.
She is the author of the defining decade, one of my all time favorite pieces of nonfiction.
Thank you.
Yes, so I am a developer while saying I love the title of your podcast because that's
my whole life.
I'm a developmental clinical psychologist and I specialize in 20 somethings which is a
thing.
It wasn't a thing 20 years ago when I started which we could discuss that later too but
you know, it's a very unique developmental moment.
It has its own unique challenges, its own unique solutions and so that's what you know
all my days and all my books are about.
So what exactly drew you to really thinking about people in their 20s?
I think it was a natural inclination for me.
I started this podcast as someone in their 20s.
I'm still in my 20s.
What was the fascination for you with this decade?
Yeah, so I believe it or not.
I have been specializing in 20 somethings for 25 years.
So maybe for like roughly your whole life so far.
So when I started doing that I was actually in graduate school at UC Berkeley.
I was getting a degree in clinical psychology and I was studying something called adult
development.
And when you say that to people they're like what's adult development?
I thought adults are already developed and you know adult development is if you look
at a 20 year old and you look at a 100 year old adult development is all the stuff that
happens from 2200.
But when I started studying adult development most of what was done there was about
you know midlife crises or you know the elderly or you know maybe it was you know the child
rearing years but there really hadn't been much of anything done on the 20s.
We can talk about this more in a minute but it had been somewhat recent that the 20s
were sort of their own developmental moment.
I mean they're really if you think about it they're nothing like the teen years.
They're not that like the 30 something years and beyond.
They're really their own thing.
So I was sort of discovering this along with a lot of research about all the amazing developmental
things that are happening in our 20s.
There's more change between 20 and third, even in any other decade in adult puts and I
was living in a college town right.
So I was inundated with young adults and 20 somethings who were sort of you know my first
clients and getting pigs and all this.
So it just and I had just finished my 20s.
So it just felt like there was so much there was really where all the action is and no
one was focusing specifically on that space.
And one of the ways I figured that out was a lot of people would come to my office and
ask the same questions.
I would tell them the same things and I thought yeah I need to be able to recommend a book
for people.
So I went into the bookstore looking for something back when people did that and there
was nothing that was like the girlfriends got a dear 20s you know maybe there was just
some couple of love projects out there.
So I thought wow this is you know an untapped need that there's this period of time which
is very unique and people aren't really talking about it and focusing on it and specializing
it.
So I started doing that and I have never looked back.
I've never wanted to do anything else.
It is just to me the most important decade of life.
It's also super difficult which we can talk about but I love it.
It's so funny you were saying like you've been doing this for 25 years it's like your
career is a 20 something your own.
Yes exactly that's true.
Yes it's all about that decade one way or the other.
So you said something in there you were like it's the most formative decade which I really
agree but it's also the most difficult.
It really exists in this vacuum between adolescence and what I sometimes refer to as like real
adulthood like in your 30s when all the things that you thought you know you would experience
as an adult maybe getting married having children buying a home they kind of for a lot of
us are happening a lot later.
What do you think creates this real difficulty for a lot of us during this period?
Well it's really that is that you're absolutely right adult milestones are now you know
and that's adult milestones I mean you know figuring out your job and finding a partner
picking a city you know maybe getting a home maybe having a kid like that's all closer
to 30 than to 20 now and so in the 20s it's just this big wide open period of uncertainty.
There's a lot more to sort of worry about than there is to hold on to.
The brain doesn't like that so your mental health does not like that and so it makes the
20s you know from where I'm standing it's an amazing opportunity to work with people before
they've made all their biggest decisions and to help them do that more thoughtfully more
productively more happily but it's from the other side of the room the 20 something that
I'm working with is living with more uncertainty than they will really at any other time of
life.
And that makes the 20s so hard is that it's probably the only time of life where you'll
wake up in the morning and you think gosh you know I don't really know we're all living
five years or if anyone's going to love me or if I can pay my bills or where I'm going
to work or if I can be happy and that's really really hard and I don't think we talk enough
about how hard all that uncertainty is.
Well let's talk about it now why is it that this uncertainty is so scary for us like
how does that manifest in maybe our behaviors even now mental health the patterns that
you see in 20 somethings.
Yeah well I'll geek out briefly on brain stuff but the brain interprets uncertainty as
danger and if you think about this evolutionarily this makes sense like if you don't know what
to round the corner you're going to assume you know it's a bear not you know it's a little
bunny rabbit and things are fun that's how we survive that your brain is wired to keep
you alive not make you happy.
So when there's uncertainty we're going to interpret it as danger we're going to feel
stress we're going to feel anxious some people get sort of avoid and depressed other people
reach for substances or you know whatever they do to kind of manage that stress around
yikes I don't know what's about to happen in my life.
So it's not something the brain likes very much but in the 21st century it's this sort
of staggering amount of uncertainty that 20 somethings live with I mean they live with
that day in and day out for 5 to 15 years and so that really takes the toll on people's
well-being on their mental health life does get better and we can talk about that too but
the 20s are tough and I think we kind of maybe imagine or are told that they're going
to be this you know best years of our lives but they're probably not not and you don't
even want them to be you want life to get better as you go.
I say that a lot actually I was saying it to someone before our 20s are when you have
the probably the least amount of money you will ever be making right.
Your relationships are like up in the air everything feels so uncertain you're probably
quite emotionally vulnerable you don't probably like your job that much and there is such
an expectation of like these are your best years these are like you better like really
hold on to them because once they're gone like they're going to be the source of all
your nostalgia all your memories and I'm just like is that really as good as it's going
to be.
I mean let's let's hope not no I mean that's what I say to my clients if your 20s turn
out to be the best years of your life something has gone terribly wrong because empirically
we know that actually it may be hard to imagine the 20s something but life does get 30
some things are happier than 20s and even old 40s are happier than 30s and even the 50s
are happy.
I mean it actually people do become happier more grounded their relationships are better
they have purpose they have meaning they have sort of that emotional stability that life
security so life really does get better I'm not really sure how this kind of myth keeps
perpetuating that you know your 20s are going to be amazing.
I mean there's some fun cool stuff that goes on but they're very hard and all those things
you mentioned of like your bro you moving to a new city don't have friends new job stressful
you know your boss is you know stressing you out etc that's real and you know the 20s
are actually I think well for most people maybe more difficult than they are.
Sometimes that makes me hearing you say that because I I'm such an optimistic person right
so right now I'm like my life is like the best it's ever going to be and so for some
reason when people are like oh it gets better at 30 it gets better at 40 I'm like but
what if it can't get any better so it has to get worse like what if I've got the inverse
like what if this is what if I'm the exception like it but then I'm like yeah yeah I
find that hard to believe because the reason life gets better it's not like just this random
growth curve you're on it gets better because you as a 20 something whatever cool stuff you've
built that you're super psyched about and I'm very happy to hear that you feel like you have a
great life you're going to keep doing that so you're going to build you know you're there'll
be more relationships or deeper relationships your career is going to just get even better or
your financial security will be better and I mean that's sort of why it happens is that people
I mean there's generally an upward trajectory in life and of course nobody knows what's going
to happen tomorrow you know with the big stuff but you know in terms of people's individual lives
I mean I love it if you feel like you've already built a lot of good stuff in your 20s because
you're just going to keep building on that that's so so reinforcing to hear the other thing that I
that actually a lot of people this is what I really want to talk about is like
feeling like there is almost it's a bit of a race and feeling like it's a race to
find the one it's a race to buy a house it's a race to have it all figured out why do you think
so many of us feel this sense of just being behind during this decade and what are we actually
behind like behind what right well that would be my question again clients do say but I'm behind
and I say behind what behind who you know if you say behind what there's usually a who well so
and so has such and such and I don't have that or well my parents had x, y, and z when they were
my age and I don't have that so there's usually some person or some idea that someone's comparing
themselves to but kind of the maybe maddening but truly wonderful thing about your 20s and beyond
as you can't so there's just so many different paths you can't compare like when you were in school
and everyone was in the same grade and you could compare your biology test with my biology test
you know it's just not the way not everybody's taken the same biology test anymore and you know
we've all had different paths through life and are doing different things so I mean you really
can't compare two different lives but we do so usually when people say that they're behind they
feel like they're behind somebody or some ideal that they had but you know a lot of what I do is
I like to say that education is an intervention and so writing books and talking on podcasts you
kind of get the real information out there and you know I remind people well let's look at you
know the average age of some of these milestones you know in the US anyway average age of marriages
like 29 first kid is maybe 30 how much ownership is 35 and these are just averages so the more career
driven or educated you are these things can often happen even later because you're spending more time
in school so you know I think most of the clients that I have aren't behind but I think they're worried
that they will be because it's these are such long form projects and you can't see like
I'm halfway there you know they you don't know right that you don't know that you may meet a
partner in two years but you can't really know for sure so they I think they worry that ultimately
they're not going to get there and it's interesting because I think that the root of that is again
that uncertainty that instability of like it just feels uncomfortable to not know to not like
in that in that lack of knowing it's like such a capacity to catastrophize I think when you don't
have all the information I know you talk about this in your new book like there is such an opportunity
there to make up your own answers to feel like everything that could go wrong will go wrong
because you haven't seen the alternative yet because you have no real conception of what it will
mean to meet the love of your life maybe it's a morrow to one day wake up and be in your own home
and be super happy and not be dealing with work drama friend drama anything like that and I just
feel like how do we become comfortable with the in between with the the period between kind of
dreaming and realizing where there is a lot of yeah just unknown a lot of blank spaces for us to
seemingly feel yeah well I love it that you mentioned catastrophic thinking so as you mentioned
have a new book out most people have read or who were listening to your podcast are probably
read the defining decade I've got a new one coming out called the 20-something treatment and it's
really age specific mental health it's like personalized medicine 20-something mental health and
one thing I address is it's the chapter called how to think but it's really about catastrophic
thinking so when you're faced with uncertainty the brain's number one go to is catastrophic thinking
and it's really similar to the brain interpreting uncertainty is danger right it's like oh my gosh
I'm never going to be happy I'm never going to find anyone I'm never going to make friends you know
what if I die broken alone that it's it's going to catastrophize and imagine the worst and again
that's your brain you know trying to protect you but it's you know that's a lot to a lot of kind of
catastrophizing in a 10-year period in your 20s so we really have to work on shifting from that
sort of what if mindset you know what if I never figure it out what if my life goes sideways to what
what is or what else and we can talk about that just kind of shifting from fears to facts
or from from fears to flexibility so that we can you know not just kind of stay stuck in the fears
of what if stuff never works out yeah my can we talk about it because I yeah I read so your team
kindly sent me a manuscript of your book and I was I devout it was amazing I was like oh great
feels so lucky but that was the thing that really stood out to me was this concept of the what is
or the what else because I have not heard of that before and it does feel like something that is very
like just like one of those strategies where you're like wow how come no one ever said this like
shifting from like because I'm such a what if thinker and I'm a catastrophizer I mean I'm
I'm a naturally very anxious person and I always think like oh but what if they don't like me what if
I like everything that I've built gets taken away what if tomorrow I wake up and every single
member of my family has died in a plane accident whatever it's like always that and I and I have
found it very hard to break out of that thinking sometime that feels like once my brain is settled
on the worst case scenario there is nothing to disprove it so can you explain this what else and what
is the yeah yeah that actually I'll use the example you you did it earlier I mean you weren't quite
catastrophizing but you said I worry that my life is just going to get worse from here yeah you
know when you said that because I've said well the data shows that probably your life's going to
get better but you you kind of said well but what if it gets worse would just of course what you know
but 20 something brain is going to do exactly I'm just I'm way too catastrophizing yeah so
that's your what if that's the fear what if my life actually gets worse instead of better I mean
of course that would be everybody's fear so shifting to what is is actually kind of what I did
with you about that of like well let me let's look at the facts let's look at the data
you actually said you've built a pretty good life now in your 20s right yeah I know I have
it's pretty good I'm pretty happy okay so the the facts are that you have I don't know all the
details of your life and not trying to get you to reveal that to me on the podcast but it sounds
like the facts are you've managed to create something good even in your 20s which is very challenging
is that correct yeah and I just think all those other things like good friends good family I've got
a long-term partner that I love it just feels like I've ticked everything off a little bit okay so
the facts are you did all that so why would you completely like go sideways in your in your 30s
and like lose all the all the sort of the skills and the know how and the work you put into that why
would that just go away it's so interesting because you're saying it to me and I can literally feel
like irrational thoughts in my brain not be able to answer that question but I think the thing I
always come back to is this like sense of fate this like I think it's like a huge imposter syndrome
thing that I think a lot of us in our 20s have where it's like oh I got all this just because I'm
lucky and luck runs out so you're putting it in some in some bigger things hands rather than your
own and like rather than think about your own skills and your own effort and your own labor
right so I'm saying I look at your life in a little I know about it so far and I don't I mean
my my saying about luck is a wise man makes his own luck so I would assume that most of what you
have you've you've worked for a lot of that and it's probably some luck involved but probably even
more sort of work or intentionality or care and cultivating that so I would assume for the facts
well you just you're just gonna not gonna know less about that in your 30s you would keep doing that
so that's kind of shifting from okay my brain gets going on the fears but what if I focus on some
facts and I give myself credit for what is not what if but but what is the other thing to do because
sometimes people are like oh I don't have any facts I don't know anything you know this is could
go either way and so you think about the what else so what else could I tell myself besides everything
is gonna go sideways my life's gonna get worse I mean that's well that's one possibility
what's another possibility what else could you be saying yeah it's interesting because it's like
it could stay the same in which case I speaking from experience that would be great or it could
get better and I feel like that's a really nice thought to have right so just letting your brain kind
of have these play with these different possibilities of okay you've got your what ifs but you've
also got your what is and you've got your what else none of that like I know I you know this is not
my first radio talking to a 20s no way no none of that gets rid of the what if but it does make your
brain hold some other possibilities besides like I am sure my life is going to be awful and like
we can't you know sometimes clients will say well help me stop doing that I want to stop doing that
you will never stop doing that because evolutionarily your brain needs to go like oh my gosh what if
I mean it it needs to do that but I will say as you get older and you have a more grounded sense of
the what is it does it but then you're like oh whatever it's fine or I'll figure it out or I've
figured this out five times before I can figure it out another couple of times like that actually
does happen you have more what is I really like hearing that I honestly what you said then the
last point you made of you figure this out a couple of like five or six whatever 12 times you've
already you've done it before that it just becomes like such a skill set rather than feeling like you
know 20s you know so many of the big problems of like oh my god I didn't pay my taxes or like I don't
know what I'm doing I just got fired or somebody just broke up with me or oh a friend of mine like
I'm feeling lonely that's a big one like I'm feeling lonely I'm always going to feel this way
um it's like the first time that we've really truly experienced that especially because of how many
major you know you talked about adult adult development and part of that is like social context
right you know you you shift from a very structured schooling environment to being on your own
and people moving everywhere and work kind of being the center of your life um and I remember
it includes like a personal story about this I used to have such a problem with loneliness when I was
in my early 20s when I was younger and anytime I felt lonely I was like oh my god this feeling is
never going to go away this is my life now I'm a lonely person and it was only until probably a
few months ago and I was traveling and I was like oh my god it happens every time I'm away from
home I'm like I'm a lonely person this feeling is never going to go away that I went back and was
like looking through old journals of mine being like this is a pretty routine experience for me at
this point like this is like on a regular cycle this is like every six months I'm having this
feeling maybe I should learn that actually it does go away so I really like that what else and then
also what is like I do have this go kind of mentality yes and you know I mean you said a lot of
really important things in there one is what you were talking about there just so many firsts in
your 20s you don't have a lot of what is or data points or you know maybe you can draw back on well
I got through this at you know in school or it camp or in sports or whatever but you know there's
so many firsts I think people feel like the first time there they get laid off you know their
lives are over but you know after well here's a factoid for you your average 20 something's going
to have nine jobs by the age of 35 so by the time you're on job you know three or four or six you
realize okay whatever I'll get another job I mean you know that's just that's what will happen
or after you've had your heart broken three times it still hurts because that's how the attachment
system works but you know you will survive it and you know maybe even feel better and maybe
even meet someone who's better suited for you so you've had more data points as you go along and
that's just one thing that's really hard in your 20s it's part of the uncertainty is there aren't
a lot of data points to say I see what this is I've gotten through it before I'll get through it
again but but you're accruing those now so that's sort of what's happening with all these firsts
and seconds and thirds as your brain is learning okay I can do this I'm literally listening to what
you were just saying being like oh my god yeah that's checking a lot of boxes in my brain especially
the heartbreak one as well like love you just feel it so deeply I'm sure I don't know I'm not
in my 30s or 40s but in your 20s I remember like it's not that the breakups have gotten easier
it's just that there is a sense of like that that that they will end in a way it's like okay you
know I've done this before I kind of have like a toolkit almost of like this is how long this is
probably gonna last these this is the first month this is the second month this is month six like
this is this is a routine now whereas I think especially like when I was like 20 or 21 like
that was well-dending to me oh yeah of course it's been there yeah been that done that I mean it's
it's I've been there done that more than once but um you know I think many 20s and things don't
know that breakups are the kind of leading precursor to feeling depressed in your 20s I mean as
would make perfect sense or you know like a big attachment loss and so people often feel quite
depressed after a breakup and you know one thing I work with my clients on is that it does not
mean that you're abnormal or disordered or sick it actually means your your heart is working your
attachment system is working if you really cared about someone and really love someone maybe even
envisioned a future with them you should be super sad if it doesn't work out and I don't expect
that to lift in two weeks I would be kind of worried if somebody was like whatever easy come easy
go after you know what felt like a significant relationship to them so you know some of the struggles
that 20 somethings go through actually a lot of them anxiety at work or sadness after a breakup
this is normal developmental um struggle that actually shows that your brain and your heart are
working properly um they're not indications that there's something wrong with you if you're
feeling stress or anxious about work or you're feeling sad about a breakup that's what I would
expect and hope in a lot of ways so actually I want to focus on this a little bit more because
there's an example you give in the book and I'm I'm gonna spoil it I don't know maybe
it's up to you whether I go for it go for it yeah I've got her name but oh their name
but um because of a breakup she was like oh I have an insecure attachment style I have a disorganized
attachment style now that is something that I see all the time um and you know it's I think it's
like 65 70% of us have a secure attachment style but by the way that we are diagnosing ourselves
using TikTok videos and social media you would think that all of us like anxious avoid it
right yes right um yeah do you talk about that a little bit more because it's one of my little
secret like pet peeves when it comes to like online psychology that you mean other people
diagnosing themselves with that yeah yeah oh having people be like it is you're you have
it it's having it's having a moment yeah so I'll have people come in new clients and they'll say
you know get I'm getting to know them well I have an insecure attachment style I'm like oh I don't
know you know not so sure so so there's a big difference between having an anxious attachment
style and just feeling anxious or having a bit insecure attachment style and just feeling insecure
and I would say that the vast majority of 20 somethings that I work with they're they don't have an
insecure attachment style they're they're in a state of insecurity so an attachment style is
something that you're saying this is diagnostic and character logical and true of me across all
situations all relationships all aspects of my life all ages and stages no like the very few
20 somethings of mine would say yeah I don't I'm not secure with friend I'm not secure with my
family I'm not secure with anybody you know partners boyfriend's girlfriends I mean that's when
you have an insecure attachment style and if it's been that way consistently across time and across
situations most 20 somethings for reasons we've already gotten into because of all the uncertainty
they're just feeling insecure you know they don't know who their friends are they don't know
if somebody likes them they don't know if this person wants to go out with them they don't know
if this new relationship is going to work or not that's just insecurity that's uncertainty that
is not having insecure attachment style and I don't love for 20 somethings to you know diagnose
themselves not just because they're often not accurate but they can kind of wrap their identities
around the sense of abnormality of like see I have an insecure attachment style and if only I
had a secure attachment style maybe this relationship would work or someone would want to be with me
and that's usually not the case it's just normal to feel nervous and worried and anxious about
whether a new relationship is going to last or about you know whether someone's going to text you
back that's normal that's not like an abnormal attachment style yeah I really like hearing that
actually because I feel like there's definitely been poets in my life where I've thought that that
was who I was and like I really understand what you mean whereby we get really invested in these
things being who we are that anything that contradicts that that is us we deny and we suppress when
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so one of the other big things about our 20s and it's about feeling behind but it's also about
dealing with uncertainty is like how do i know that i'm making the right decisions i feel like we
have so many options of career pathways and people we could date and cities we could live in
something you talk about in the first book though that i think really applies here is this concept of
sliding versus deciding can you talk us through that a little bit more? yeah so sliding versus
deciding is a concept i mean i it's i popularized it putting it in my book but it's researched by
Scott Stanley really about living together but it could apply to anything but it's the sense of
like do we sort of slide into relationships because it happens it's convenient it's gradual we
didn't really think about it or do we really actively decide this is the right person for me i
want to make this commitment or this is the right job i'm going to stay here another year for
these very good reasons and i think a lot of times we know with relationships whether you're
living with someone or even at work people can kind of slide into sticking around in something because
they're already there for a while it's just easier to stay another year than to imagine starting
over again so i'll just do another year and so we can sort of slide into um living with people being
in relationships with people longer than maybe we should be staying with job in jobs longer than maybe
it's really serving us because it's the sort of the easier path it's just something we can slide into
rather than really saying this is you know given all choices this would be the best one for me
so i guess that leads to my next question is how do we know which one is the best one for us
because i feel well that is a good question i actually think sometimes people slide because they
don't want to face the fact that that can't totally be considered so in my in my book coming out you
know any minute uh the 20-something treatment i talk about what are called large world problems and
for large world problems or problems where all the options and the consequences and the outcomes
can't be modeled so like if you know a small world problem as you throw dice and you can you know bet
on the chances of getting a three you know how likely that is you know to get it not get it you can
even you know bet some amount to win or lose those are small world problems large world problems are
choosing a city or a partner or a roommate or a college or a job or how many kids to have i mean
it's all those problems where you can't model all the options you can't know all the consequences so
you really you're you're making a decision and that's uncertainty not and that's you know known
factors so you know so many so many people come to me because they want to know
is it right to stay with this person or to break up or should i take this job or should i take
that job and there is no i mean we could talk it to death you could try to you know do an algorithm
you could go see a fortune teller and get your card read and you know but nobody no one can hack
that for you that it's ultimately really that's what truly a decision is of okay i don't know
i'll never know which one is right or best so there's not like a right decision there's just my
decision so we kind of try to you know make the most thoughtful intentional choice that we can
and then i think you reassess you know a year into the job or a year into the relationship and do
a real gut check of like well how did that choice pan out for me so far am i happy more happy than
unhappy what should i be you know kind of paying attention to and then you decide well do i sign
up for another year of this or do i know that's really interesting like you do a gut check
what how do you i like some of those questions you said like am i happier
uh that i would be without this person without this job what are some of the other ways that we can
maybe sense dissatisfaction or sense that they might this might be time to look for something
that's better for us um um i often ask clients is there something that you're doing that you hope
you're not doing in five years or is there something about this relationship that you hope is not
the way it is in five years and if they say yes and it's like okay well then why are we doing it now
how long are we going to do this now that usually if people look out five years like oh yeah definitely
don't want to be in this debt in relationship in five years okay well why are we here now and how much
longer are we going to hang out um or the same goes for the job or gosh i hope my boyfriend and i aren't
still having uh conflict about cooking or whatever in five years well then let's fix it this year
that's i think about that a lot i'm i guess i will say my i'm in a great relationship there's no i'm
i've done the questions and they've never they've always turned her whole baby but i do in previous
relationships i remember being like i want to break up with this person but i don't but being like
let me just wait six months because i was like delaying the pain i was delaying you know
and then i had a friend say to me and she was like well wouldn't you rather be six months into it
in six months time rather than starting in six months time and she was like what good for her
yeah i was like oh wow like you're so she's like the time is gonna pass anyways like you're going
to get to the point and i think she's like you're going to have to break up with this person it's
just whether you start the process now and then in six months time give me like oh thank gosh i've
done that already or whether you weigh and you delay it and it's like it's emotional procrastination
where you understand yeah it's like you understand that there's going to be a lot of fallout
emotionally and mentally from a big decision so why not just wait why not just
why not just make that a future you problem and you don't realize that future you
is gonna be there pretty quick like is you is you is gonna be your present you with it yeah honestly
and that's like at a theater like it's interesting because i said this to so i always say this
on the show like you can reverse 100% like the only decisions you can't reverse the ones that you
didn't make so i think you know it's like oh i guess having children you can't really reverse that
decision but well you can always adopt yeah yeah that's true but it's like especially when it comes
to career risks and career risks and wanting to move to a new place wanting to travel you know
there is so much regret in inaction probably more than taking action because at least again we're
gonna return to what you were saying before like when you actually do something about a desire or
an urge you have you not faced with the what if being what if i done that thing right and you learn
you learn something but you know i think sometimes this isn't exactly what you're talking about
but oftentimes 20 somethings will delay decisions so that they you know sort of like keep all
their options open so they don't make a decision so nothing is like it's like they're they think
they're stopping time i mean they're not stopping time and not making decisions is a decision so
you're deciding you know not to break up with that partner you know you were sort of not making a
decision on it that's a decision you were deciding to sink in at six months into a relationship
that that you were sort of done with yeah and your friend was right to say like shoot you could
be six months through the breakup at this point so she was definitely right and i did stay for
another six months sir probably should have listened to yeah but you know we live well with
absolutely but i like that idea of like you feel like you're buying yourself time but like the
time is still passing right you're just still passing i mean i think the thing with it's what's
so different about being an adult versus sort of being in school is you know there's no syllabus
there's no i mean this gets back to am i behind there's no syllabus there's no schedule that you
have to meet that the grading system is whatever you decide it is depends on your value system and
what you're trying to achieve not what other people are saying you should do or what the person
sitting next to you is doing and you know that means there aren't any right or wrong answers
there are just your answers which seems kind of like a annoying non-answer but it's actually
really liberating when you when you really lean into that of that's you know i don't have to
worry about whether i'm doing it right or wrong or on time or ahead or behind whatever none of
that really exists it's it's just it's your life your choices and you're going to make most of
these choices more than once and i mean even within one relationship that you know may last your
whole life every day you're choosing how's that relationship going to go today or what am i going
to work on or what's what what what conversation am i going to have with my partner to make it better
that work constantly able to sort of improve the choices that we make i like that as well it's like
not just a it's not just one decision it's an active choice like throughout your life to be there
right to stay there whether that's a relationship with jobless city
whatever right so i've got one final question for you okay all right i'm ready yeah i don't know
that's very anticlimactic of me although i i do really like you have a really good answer to this
what do you think of some expectations that we should like go up in our 20s that would make us
happier um i you know i feel like you've done a really good job of focusing on that today i mean
i feel like the biggest expectation that that people need to let go of is that their 20s are
going to be the best years of their lives and we talked about this but they're probably not going
to be and that's really really good news that's a huge bummer if the best years of your lives
or your 20s and then the rest of your life is all downhill you don't want that it's not probably
going to happen um but you know kind of feeling like everything's supposed to be amazing in your 20s
it's really sort of a recipe for heartbreak because it's a very challenging time so i would say
that expectation that everything's going to be great and or you're going to have everything
figured out by 30 um i talk a lot i really in both books about um there's this cool study i won't
get in the weeds about it but it says 80 it says 80% of life's most defining moments take place by
age 35 um that is true however you know most of those defining moments are you know
happen in fits and starts so i actually posted something on my instagram the other day it was a
picture of me at third b five pregnant with my first child and getting my phd my diplomas
and that was 35 and i was joking like oh if i got these two in right under the wire um but when you
follow them backwards both of those projects started earlier you know it i started studying
to get into grad schools you know in the middle of my 20s um i bumped into my partner for the first
time in my mid 20s and then met him again in my late 20s and then we got married after that
so all so you know you don't really know like all these defining moments they're probably going
to happen by the time you're 35 and some of them may be happening in small pieces now you just don't
know it so the idea that everything's going to be done by 30 is ridiculous don't stress
but you might have started most of these things you just don't get to see the fruits of your labor
quite yet wow i really like that outlook and it just makes things that feel like very exciting
and surprising yeah like this exciting and surprising and you you want you want i mean i want your
20s to be awesome but i also want your 30s and 40s and 50s to be awesome and i think if you lay
the groundwork for that then life really does get better i mean why would it not what a positive way
to finish thank you so much for this little little adventure now i want to quickly say you have
just joined instagram and everything yeah and you've done your fast little like you've dipped
your toes into social media i have i have yeah that's um it's funny because i was off social media
i mean to be an author and to be sort of out there i was off social media more than you would
expect i didn't have an instagram i had a very inactive twitter account that was it um
um whatever i was just sort of off of it and i think part of it was i was focused on writing books
you know i have clients and you know i don't know how you feel but i think a lot of clients maybe
don't want to see bump into their therapist on social media yeah no but i'm just giving
the same advice they gave you like to everyone right right so for me it was more of you know i'm
going to kind of you know lilo and write books and and try to reach people that way which is super
important to me because you know and good therapy is not accessible and affordable not only to
everybody but really not to most people so part of writing books is about getting that out there
but anyway as social media has evolved and as i have been convinced that hello that is where
people get their education and their information and their news now um then if i want to help people
that's where i need to be also that i know y'all don't want to see me dance or put on makeup or anything
i think i want to say i don't do that well actually that's not true but um you know now that it feels like
obviously this is where a lot of people are getting you know good information or they could be
getting better information and so i wanted to be a part of of that of the better information
i really really like that because i feel like you have a lot to contribute there's lots of
misinformation out there and it's nice to have people online who have degrees have raised like
have done research on this stuff to really set the facts straight so uh what where can people follow
you what's your instagram name uh well i'm brand new so please come out in full force because i have
like two followers but um i'm at dr meg j on instagram tick tock
twitter pretty much anywhere where people would be i'm dr meg j is the handle and i've just
recently joined so there's you know some stuff starting to put some videos up with the idea
especially with the 20-something treatment coming out is to get the content out because like you
said there's a lot of misinformation and i would love to um you know kind of get it on that
conversation and help people out oh my gosh well i'm super excited and i'm super excited for people to
get their hands on your book i'm going to leave a pre-order link in the description of this
episode and a link to the defining decade if you haven't read that book and you are a fan of
this podcast what are you doing they go so hand in it it's insane yes right exactly it's funny i
hadn't even read it before i started the podcast and then i started the show and i was like oh my gosh
like this is so aligned so i will love it yeah i will leave a link to both of those as always if
you enjoyed this episode please feel free to leave a five star review on apple podcasts
Spotify wherever you are listening right now share it with a friend if you think that they would
enjoy this they would get something out of this conversation i definitely did and if you have an
episode suggestion please feel free to send it to me at that psychology podcast and you could
follow me at jamespeg or instagram for some more behind the scenes content we will be back next week
with another episode until then stay safe and we will see you soon
oh out 20s the drunk dialing the forgetting to wash our face at night and yes neglecting out teeth
don't do that last one you only get one set of teeth so you need to protect them
pronamel intensive enamel repair penetrates deep into the enamel surface and locks in vital minerals
to repair acid weakened enamel pronamel also makes a new mouthwash which helps to repair acid
weakened enamel beyond brushing alone pronamel is the number one dentist recommended friend for
acid erosion so by pronamel repair anywhere you buy your toothpaste or mouthwash visit pronamel.com
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