[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 … - Meg Jay

[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.

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.

Twentysomethings take these difficult moments particularly hard. Compared to older adults, they find negative information — the bad news — more memorable than positive information — or the good news. MRI studies show that twentysomething brains simply react more strongly to negative information than do the brains of older adults. There is more activity in the amygdala — the seat of the emotional brain. When twentysomethings have their competence criticized, they become anxious and angry. They are tempted to march in and take action. They generate negative feelings toward others and obsess about the why: “Why did my boss say that? Why doesn’t my boss like me?” Taking work so intensely personally can make a forty-hour workweek long indeed.

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.

became more urgent and more defined. A timeline may not be a virtual reality chamber, but it can help our brains see time for what it really is: limited.