Welcome back everyone to our first official episode of Season 2!.  We are glad to see you back and we look forward to another year of awesomeness.

Our twenties are supposed to be the time of our lives, right?  A time where you can do whatever you want and use the excuse, “I’m just trying to find myself.”  You can backpack through Europe for as long as you want and finance it all on your 3 new credit cards!  You can date anyone and everyone that will wink at you on match.com or buy you a drink at a bar.  And you can jump from job to job every 3 months because loyalty is dead and that’s what young adults do these days.  The craziest part of it all is that your parents are not only OK with this, but they encourage it!  They explain to you that they wish they traveled more when they were your age and took advantage of all that youth has to offer.  But you know what’s funny…they didn’t do any of that.  Yes I’m generalizing, but for most of modern history, your twenties were a time to find the best job you can with your skill set, work hard, start your family and begin to take on responsibility.

Nearly 80% of life’s most significant events take place by age thirty-five whether you want them to or not – so it’s kind of important that you are making good decisions.  The career path you choose, or at least the experience you gain, is going to impact your future earnings in an extremely skewed fashion.   The people you meet in your twenties are going to have a more profound effect on who you become than at any point in the future. And, not to scare you too much, but if you are thinking about having a family at some point, these years are the time to start planning.  At age 30 a woman is 1/2 as fertile as she was just 5 years prior and by age 35, she is just 1/4 as fertile.  So what do you do? With all of these things happening in such a short period of time, it’s extremely easy to become anxious, scared and confused.  Well you’re in luck, because Smart People Podcast is here to help you on your way.

This week we speak with Dr. Meg Jay.  Dr. Jay (www.drmegjay.com) is a clinical psychologist who specializes in adult development, and twenty-somethings in particular.  She is an assistant clinical professor at the University of Virginia, and maintains a private practice in Charlottesville, VA.  Dr. Jay earned a doctorate in clinical psychology, and in gender studies, from the University of California, Berkeley.  In this conversation with Meg we cover everything from dating and relationships to what your career path is and who you want to become and much more.  We dive into Meg’s AMAZING brand new book, The Defining Decade: Why your twenties matter – and how to make the most of them now.  If you’re still lucky enough to have all or part of your twenties ahead of you, this is simply a MUST read.  However, if you’re twenties have come and gone, there is still much to be learned and perhaps you can help pass on these words of wisdom to your own children.  Whatever your reasoning is, we can promise you that this is one episode you really can’t afford to miss.  Do it for yourself, do it for our youth!