In case this video hasn’t made the rounds to your internet neighborhood yet –
Meg Jay is a clinical psychologist whose practice focuses on 20-somethings. In this TEDtalk she discusses why now is the time to invest in your life, rather than believe your 20s are a ten-year freebie pass to mess/wander around because life and direction are just going to be there for you at 30. I think she is actually the first person I’ve heard who tells people that the decisions you make today can cut off possibilities for your future (such as the ability to have a family when you want one). Even church advice is typically of the “get married young, but if God doesn’t bring your mate into your life in college, just keep hoping and praying – God’s timing is perfect!” variety. Meanwhile, girls are turning 30, dressing frumpy, and waiting for that sacrificial leader to walk in the door on Sunday and choose them. Good luck with that!
Jay’s talk is important because a generation of young people has been raised to believe that they can have whatever they want, whenever they want – they are just that special, and all they have to do is wish hard and it will happen. Especially now, with the ubiquity and immediacy of texting, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social media, you can get stuck in a bubble where reality doesn’t intrude – where you don’t (and don’t have to) contemplate reality. This makes getting hit in the face with reality even worse, AND you’re totally psychologically unprepared to deal with it. While Dr. Jay does not give Christian advice, she does hit a lot of the same areas that the Boundless types are always harping on, except Dr. Jay does it in a way makes a lot more sense and is far less annoying.
Also, although Jay focuses on twentysomethings, her advice is good for any age. Now is always the right time to take stock of your life, get focused, and do things that will help you get where you need to go.
Haley's Halo 
Her book is one of the best I’ve read in years. I quote her frequently on my site: http://3rdmilleniummen.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/manosphere-become-a-better-man-part-2/
I love reading the comment section of the TED page regarding this clip.
Very divisive!
Most women i know who have children swear up and down its the best thing that ever happened to them, as if it’s something they never could have imagined or thought possible, beyond their expectations. Many wish they did it earlier when they had more energy, drive and time to spend with their children.
Too many women today are sold a bill of goods that working for a paycheck and doing office work is more rewarding than thinking about starting a family early, and are told all kinds of progressive lies to cajole them too. Shaming for giving up on being all they can be. That if you don’t pursue career, or dare to think of becoming a mom well before you establish a career pushing paper.. you’re a failure as a woman.
Only a feminist could make that claim that not doing what you as a woman were built to do and biologically evolved to do and the only thing a woman can do that a man cannot do (gestate children) is being a failure as a woman.
Women who make their family early and a priority are like a Ferrari being driven as it was meant to be driven. On a track, top speed, redlining the engine.
Feminists are like really old people you see driving a Ferrari on the highway well below the speed limit holding everyone up and wondering why everyone is yelling at them. And lets not forget by the time they decide to take the car to the track, they’ve put 500,000 miles on it, it’s rusted and weather beaten, it’s shocks are soft, it’s leaking, and 50% of the horses have run out of the barn. There’s not much fun left in this Ferrari, but a helluva lot of painful and expensive maintenance.
Perfecto! Of course, a sensible person already knows the centuries-old adage–in our case, “Never put off until age 30 what you can do at age 20.”
Even church advice is typically of the “get married young,
If only. If only. The hardest thing in the world is for a good Christian guy to get married young. It takes til your 30s to earn enough money to get most of the girls to even speak to you. Gone are the days of yore, when young lovers would marry with nothing, and build their lives together. There are even courtship advocates who say that a man has to have a house before he can initiate romance!
So… with young marriage unavailable in Church, young Christian men suffer. (While the church chicks, or at least a substantial subset of them, slut around with nonChristian alphas. More and more marriages nowadays involve a virgin groom and a nonvirgin bride.)
but if God doesn’t bring your mate into your life in college, just keep hoping and praying – God’s timing is perfect!” variety. Meanwhile, girls are turning 30, dressing frumpy, GETTING FAT and waiting for that sacrificial leader to walk in the door on Sunday and choose them.
fixed it for ya.
Thanks for the link Haley!
@van Rooinek
I had a conversation last weekend with a girl who was 27 and said she was having trouble finding a good man in the church she was currently going to. While she was composed for most of the time we were hanging out, most of the evening consisted of talking about different TV shows she liked or texting someone else or checking Facebook on her phone. In addition, after I left the party she ended up getting drunk and her friend ended up having to escort her home. Even among those who are not praying and expanding there are women who act in completely selfish ways that immediately discount them from the running of being a future wife.
It will be the next generation of women who turn on the careerist/feminist paridigm.
The current crop have too many sunk costs to admit the truth to themselves, so they will end up rationalizing away their decision.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_costs
Loss aversion will keep them from admitting the truth.
Bravo, Ms. Jay. Bravo.
I had a conversation last weekend with a girl who was 27 and said she was having trouble finding a good man in the church she was currently going to.
I could probably identify about half a dozen for her in a few minutes. Starting with her Beta orbiters. However, she probably won’t even consider these guys — they’re probably not on her mental radar at all — because of this dynamic.
M3–
I do see the other side – sometimes young people try to be responsible and sign up for a college major/job track that they don’t really like or perhaps don’t even have real aptitude for, but do so because they want to make sure they are financially stable. Then they spend their 20s working but miserable. Dr. Jay’s advice isn’t really targeted at those people, though.
I know quite a few couples from church who married young and then once any difficulties came their way post-marriage, one of the pair walked out because they were under the belief that they were missing the wonderful excitement of the single life.
Nearly every person who did this ended up in a worse situation, some disastrously so, but even the example of others didn’t deter any of them.
For younger couples, the walk out-er often ends up in a worse situation than the walk out-ee, especially if the walk out-er is female. Just because there are hotter, more exciting single guys out there who want to date you doesn’t mean they also want to MARRY you. That’s where a lot of young women go wrong – they may be able to upgrade in dating, but not usually in marriage.
[AH: bye.]