1.Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today And then one day you find, ten years has got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
— David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, “Time”
2. Almost invariably, growth and development has what’s called a critical period. There’s a particular period of maturation in which, with external stimulation of the appropriate kind, the capacity will pretty suddenly develop and mature. Before that and later than that, it’s either harder or impossible.
— Noam Chomsky, linguist
3. Uncertainty makes people anxious, and distraction is the twenty-first century opiate of the masses. Twentysomethings are tempted, and even encouraged, to turn away to close their eyes and hope for the best.
“Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper”. At the end of the day, all one needs is more optimism because at the end of their twenties many will want more than diversions and record collections.
4. In almost all areas of development, there is what is called a critical period, a time when we are primed for growth and change, when simple exposure can lead to dramatic transformations.
These critical periods are windows of opportunity when learning happens quickly. Afterward things are not so easy. The twenties are that critical period of adulthood.
These are the years when it will be easiest to start the lives we want. And no matter what we do, the twenties are an inflection point — the great reorganization — a time when the experiences we have disproportionately influence the adult lives we will lead.
5. One who take time to explore and also have the nerve to make the commitments along the way construct strong identities. They have higher self-esteem and are more persevering and realistic. This path to identity is associated with a host of positive outcomes, including a clearer sense of self, greater life satisfaction, better stress management, stronger reasoning, and resistance to community etc.
6. Twentysomethings who think they have until later to leave unemployment or underemployment behind miss out on moving ahead while they are still traveling light. No matter how smoothly this goes, late bloomers will likely never close the gap between themselves and those who got started earlier. This leaves many thirty-and fortysomethings feeling as if they have ultimately paid a surprisingly high price for a string of random twentysomething jobs. Midlife is when we may realize that our twentysomething choices cannot be undone.
[Those] deeply enmeshed in [a close-knit group] may never become aware of the fact that their lives do not actually depend on what happens within the group but on forces far beyond their perception.
— Rose Coser, sociologist
Yes is how you get your first job, and your next job, and your spouse, and even your kids. Even if it’s a bit edgy, a bit out of your comfort zone, saying yes means you will do something new, meet someone new, and make a difference.
— Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google
7. Not knowing what you want to do with your life — or not at least having some ideas about what to do next — is a defense against that terror. It is a resistance to admitting that the possibilities are not endless. It is a way of pretending that now doesn’t matter. Being confused about choices is nothing more than hoping that maybe there is a way to get through life without taking charge.
Unthought knowns are those things we know about ourselves but forget somehow. These are the dreams we have lost sight of or the truths we sense but don’t say out loud. We may be afraid of acknowledging the unthought known to other people because we are afraid of what they might think. Even more often, we fear what the unthought known will then mean for ourselves and our lives.
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.
But it isn’t.
8.In the twentysomething years, even a small shift can radically change where we end up in our thirties and beyond. The twenties are an up-in- the-air and turbulent time, but if we can figure out how to navigate, even a little bit at a time, we can get further, faster, than at any other stage in life. It is a pivotal time when the things we do — and the things we don’t do — will have an enormous effect across years and even generations to come.
So let’s get going. The time is now.
