The truth about being twenty-somethings

I’d like to chat with my fellow twenty-somethings.

In a culture that idolizes youth, the prime years of our twenties are what many people talk about. No one will deny the adventure, the chaos and the inherent doubt that follows us throughout this decade. It’s tough, and apparently it's even tougher now than it was during the Great Depression. Our generation is the most stressed and anxious to date, and that’s a fact, says a new USA Today study on the Millennial Generation.

Opinions about our age group range from “life is a party, live it up, take advantage of the throw-away-extra-decade-of-teenage-years” to the “better settle down because you’ll worry about this stuff later.” Some of us prefer to regard 30 as the new 20, and therefore we have lots of time to decide what to do with our lives. So we just sit back and watch the years pass by, thinking something will fall into our laps if we think about it hard enough.

But after rummaging through articles and blogs about “20 Things Every 20-Something Should Know How To Do” and the apologetics blogpost “Because I’m a 20-something” that drip with laissez faire whim, I started to wonder if my twenty-something years were really a time of waiting and partying. I realized that not only do young people need to discuss this but also, as a twenty-something, I didn’t want to be treated like I was a teenager until I was 30. As if to answer a prayer, I was handed the book The Defining Decade by Meg Jay, Ph.D.

In her TED talk, “Why 30 is not the new 20”, Jay speaks directly to this mindset and debunks it in less than 15 minutes. In an opening anecdote about a patient, she mused, “Work happened later, marriage happened later, kids happened later, even death happened later.” Why not assume we’ve got all the time in the world to accomplish our vocation, life goals and leave a legacy on Earth?

The reason is because our twenties are the most effective time for learning — physically, emotionally and spiritually. This is when we define who we want to be and become better versions of who we are.

Jay works directly with our age group. She says our twenties are not a thing to sit back and watch, they’re a thing to claim. This is the time to pursue genuine relationships, build capital and take care of our minds and bodies the most, because by the time we hit 30 we may realize we wanted to be in a different place and we should have started earlier. Jay flips our perception of our twenties from being a “developmental downtime” into the rightful “developmental sweet spot.”

To navigate youth can be a battlefield: exciting but stressful and sometimes devastating. Knowing that God has a plan for each of us, and that He is present in our discernment is something we also have to keep in mind and know in our hearts.

This decade in our lives is a gift. Now is the time to embrace this plan that combines your desires and His design. It’s time to take back the twenties.