Meg Jay Quotes

We even know that larger social networks change our brains for the better as they require us to communicate with more and different others.

Many twentysomethings assume life will come together quickly after thirty, and maybe it will. But it is still going to be a different life. We imagine that if nothing happens in our twenties then everything is still possible in our thirties. We think that by avoiding decisions now, we keep all of our options open for later — but not making choices is a choice all the same.

Doing something later is not automatically the same as doing something better

Perhaps this is the true travesty of “social” media: the damage it has done to the social lives of young people just when they need others the most.

Goals have been called the building blocks of adult personality, and it is worth considering that who you will be in your thirties and beyond is being built out of goals you are setting for yourself today.

Ian pretended that not knowing what to do was the hard part when, somewhere inside, I think he knew that making a choice about something is when the real uncertainty begins. The more terrifying uncertainty is wanting something but not knowing how to get it. It is working toward something even though there is no sure thing. When we make choices, we open ourselves up to hard work and failure and heartbreak, so sometimes it feels easier not to know, not to choose, and not to do.

Society is structured to distract people from the decisions that have a huge impact on happiness in order to focus attention on the decisions that have a marginal impact on happiness.

I feel like I’m in the middle of the ocean. Like I could swim in any direction but I can’t see land on any side so I don’t know which way to go.

The frontal lobe is where we move beyond the futile search for black-and-white solutions as we learn to tolerate — and act on — shades of gray.

What no one tells twentysomethings like Emma is that finally, and suddenly, they can pick their own families - they can create their own families - and these are the families that life will be about. These are the families that will define the decades ahead.

One thing I have learned is that many, many people feel isolated with similar problems, unaware that they are not as alone or as different as they think.

The twentysomething years have never been more in the zeitgeist. Popular culture has an almost obsessive focus on the twenties such that these freebie years appear to be all that exist. Child celebrities and everyday kids spend their youth acting twenty, while mature adults and the Real Housewives dress, and are sculpted, to look twenty-nine. The young look older and the old look younger, collapsing the adult lifespan into one long twentysomething ride.

In the world of mental health, the lowest-functioning clients and the highest-functioning clients receive the worst care. The lowest-functioning clients typically struggle with serious mental illnesses that are maintained more than cured. And, because of downward drift that draws a disproportionate number of such patients into the lower income brackets, these clients often do not have access to top-notch care. The highest-functioning clients, on the other hand, usually have a lot going for them, including family or schools that connect them with private therapists when needed. These high-functioning clients are what therapists call YAVIS — young, attractive, verbal, intelligent, and successful — and these qualities bestow all sorts of social and psychological advantages. Being young means, as a colleague once put it, “that you haven’t completely screwed up your life yet.” Being verbal allows you to easily exchange a common currency with friends and bosses as you parlay being talkative into social status. Intelligence aids achievement and problem-solving, and even leadership. Successful people are generally brimming with confidence. And, as Aristotle said, “beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction.” So, YAVIS clients are well received nearly everywhere they go, and many therapists light up when one comes walking in the door. Still, there are two paths to being smart and charming when you are young: Life has been good or life has been bad. When life has been good, maybe someone goes to see a therapist for a while because some isolated thing is not currently going well. Most likely, the difficulty will be resolved quickly and the client will be on his way. When life has been bad, someone goes to see a therapist because even though things look pretty on the outside the person feels horrible on the inside, and this is a discrepancy that even many therapists cannot hold. Sometimes it is just too jarring to imagine that someone who seems so perfec

The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.

It’s easy to surround yourself with friends who are just like you. As a group, you may decide everyone else is doing it wrong. Friends can form a culture of criticism where differences are seen as deficiencies.” “OK…” “But sometimes differences are just differences. They can even be strengths.