2024-04-09
35 分钟How important are your twenties — and how bad are they? Meg Jay is a clinical psychologist who specializes in young adult development in twenty year-olds. She and Adam review the science of what makes this developmental period important, discuss the common mistakes that we make, and share tips for twentysomethings (and parents) navigating this tumultuous decade. Meg’s latest book, The Twentysomething Treatment, is out now.
TED audio collective hey, everyone, it's Adam Grant.
Welcome back to rethinking my podcast on the science of what makes us tick with the TeD audio collective.
I'm an organizational psychologist, and I'm taking you inside the minds of fascinating people to explore new thoughts and new ways of thinking.
My guest today is Meg Jay.
She's a clinical psychologist at the University of Virginia and the world's leading expert on the quarter life crisis.
I've been doing it 25 years, which I kind of can't believe when I say that, but when I went to grad school, there was no such thing as specializing in 20 somethings.
There was adult development, but nobody really knew what that was because, you know, people would say, I thought adults were already developed, but everything that happens between 21 hundred is adult development.
But I lived in a college town and so I ended up working with a lot of college students and young adults.
And then the more I learned about the adult development literature, I realized this is where all the action is.
I love this.
That makes me wonder, did you have an awful twenties?
My twenties were pretty on point in terms of all the things that I write about, been there, done that, survived it.
I'm not really writing memoirs.
I don't think my twenties would be all that interesting.
But working with 20 somethings for 25 years has been really interesting, and I've learned a ton by doing it.
In my twenties, I was laser focused on my goals, which was productive, but also led to some tunnel vision.
So I appreciate Meg's thoughtfulness about that period of our youth.
I'm a fan of her TED talk, why 30 is not the new 20, and her new book, the 20 Something Treatment, which explores why young adulthood is so challenging and how we can improve it.
Is there something that over the course of this conversation, you want me to rethink or our audience to rethink?
Yeah, I mean, I think I want to rethink how we're talking about and how we're approaching young adult mental health.