"Important Years" Meg Jay: Why do I need to turn my head already in 20 years
Masha Vorslav
In Russia, the book "Important Years" (originally "The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter") by Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist, author of the famous lecture "Why 30 is not a new 20" was published. We tell why it is best to read it at 20, and especially if you want to kick up to 30, it is clear that, and all the most important and most important things in life seem to materialize by themselves in the fourth decade.
Meg Jay is a Ph.D. and a psychologist specializing in the development of young people of several age groups, mainly from 20 to 30 years. Her work "Important Years" is dedicated to twenty years; Jay, according to her, is one of the few who began to speak not about the youth, but with her - and for that deserves sincere thanks.
"Important years" encompass several areas of life: career, love, perception of body and time - so, at least, the text is rubricated. In fact, the most talked about work. It is clear why the division into chapters "career" and "time" was needed, but without losing sense they can be combined under one heading - part of the perception of time is revealed in such a way that it would be integrated into the work narration without roughness. Much attention is paid to love and personal life and quite a drop to health, or rather to one of its aspects, fertility.
Jay begins with a chapter on work - this approach is appealing. But whether she cites as an example of completely disorderly heroes, or the reader understands a bit more about his career than he expected, this part is depressing - when you experienced panic attacks a year ago, fearing that you would waste your information and waste your life, read about careless 28-year-olds, making to achieve their vague plans a little less than a damn, boring.
Feeling insecure and making mistakes is necessary for personal development.
The part about personal relationships comes more vigorously - however, it is quite likely because a particular reader is not as smooth with them as with the work. The psychologist pays attention not so much to romantic as to important connections in principle (after some conversations about the family, a lump in my throat is almost groped). For example, Jay notes and confirms with more than one study and article the importance of strong social ties - regardless of whether they develop further or not, they help a young person to feel for a solid ground and not feel like a leaf in the wind.
The last metaphor is from the final part of the book; it seems that it most accurately describes the condition of those 20-year-olds who are just dumping children's fluff and raising real feathers. When you are 20+, Jay speaks and shows with examples, it is completely natural to feel anxiety, self-doubt, to make big and small mistakes at work and in life - this is necessary for personal development and, which is especially pacifying, this need is confirmed. Jay explores a very large number of situations in which young people can slip, and helps them rethink and overcome. I will not rob a potential reader, but I will throw a bait: if you ever thought that you were zero and did not know what to do with your life, if it happened to deny your own achievements and get into strange or even shameful relationships, you should open Goodreads or Bookmate, pay a subscription and download this short, useful book.
Perhaps, those who have good senior comrades (friends or family), the book will not tell as much as annotates, but, unfortunately, in 20 few have competent advisers, as well as the courage and peace to contact them. "Important Years" is better to read than to skip; their simple-minded language does its job - namely, it states in the thought that to be happy you need to work hard (Chiksentmikhayi, hello), probe where it is more painful, and go against the wind - and at the same time take care of yourself, and not choose anything. More important than yourself, nobody is yet - perhaps with the presence of children, this scheme is changing, but as long as they are not there, you are the most important person for yourself, and about that - and the eternal gun at the temple, helping to separate the sand from the pearls and make it faster, higher, stronger - you must always remember.