What no one tells twentysomethings like Emma is that finally, and suddenly, they can pick their own families - they can create their own families - a… - Meg Jay

often the first thing we know about ourselves is not what we are — it’s what we aren’t. We mark ourselves as not-this or not-that, the way Ian was quick to say he didn’t want to sit at the same desk all day. But self-definition cannot end there. An identity or a career cannot be built around what you don’t want. We have to shift from a negative identity, or a sense of what I’m not, to a positive one, or a sense of what I am. This takes courage.

the years that were ahead. As he said, this made action impossible. Because Ian didn’t know that twentysomethings who make choices are happier than those who tread water, he kept himself confused. This was easy to do. Ian hung out with an indecisive crowd. At the bike shop where he worked, his friends assured him he didn’t need to make decisions

"The more you use your brain, the more brain you will have to use. " — George A. Dorsey, anthropologist