What defines you?
On my mind
I finished reading a book this week called “The Defining Decade: Why your twenties matter and how to make the most of them now.” The book is written by Dr. Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist who has specialized in twentysomething clients. It’s directed to twentysomething readers instead of talking about them and focuses on various aspects of your life including, work, relationships, love and fertility.
I have a year and a half left of my twenties, so I’m going all in on self-examination and reflection. There’s been a number of transitions in my life with family, career and personal relationships, which are making me think more critically about what I want right now. Although anyone who knows me knows I don’t really need an excuse to be existential.
This book would have been great for me to read in college, but it still resonated a lot with me now, particularly these two quotes.
“Goals direct us from the inside, but shoulds are paralyzing judgments from the outside. Goals feel like authentic dreams while shoulds feel like oppressive obligations. Shoulds set up a false dichotomy between either meeting and ideal or being a failure, between perfection or settling. The tyranny of the should even pits us against our own best interests.”
“It is easy to feel overwhelmed by uncertainty, to want to lie low with the urban tribe, or our parents, until our brains just mature on their own and somehow suddenly know the sure answers to our lives. But that’s now how the brain works. And that’s not how life works. besides, even if our brains could wait, love and work can’t. The twenties are, indeed, the time to get busy. It’s forward thinking for an uncertain age.”
My basic takeaway is that the twenties are a time to explore, but they shouldn’t be dismissed as a time that you can waste and then suddenly get serious in your thirties and forties. I know that I value a successful career, but I value my family, health, integrity and impact on the world more, so what are the moves I need to make to protect those things? This is a unique time of extended adolescence, in which more young adults are spending time away from family, unmarried and discovering themselves. Take note of what you value and build your life around those principles. Be intentional with your relationships if you want to be in one. Taking action and trying new opportunities is better than waiting around for the answers to your life purpose. Don’t stick to one crowd of people. You’ll gain more from building more relationships and connecting with those outside of your hometown and family.
Some parts of the book did feel a bit alarmist, particularly the part of about planning for marriage and babies. According to my tentative timeline, I should have been married yesterday if I want to get married, have time before and between having kids and continue advancing in my career. Lovely. If you don’t come into reading this book with the right mentality, you could end up feeling more depressed or angry for not following the direction she advises her clients and the readers. Also if you’re well past your twenties, I’m sure you will roll your eyes at many passages and the presumption that if you haven’t done all the groundwork during that decade, you may have screwed yourself over. I do believe you are allowed to start late and start over whenever you want. Life is a journey and it is what you make of it.
If you’ve read this book, I’d love to hear what stood out to you and if you agreed or disagreed with the author’s advice. And if you’re 30+, send me what you’d want to share with twentysomethings that you wish you knew about at the time.
What I’m noting this week:
Megan Rapinoe is a patriot // Are you watching the Women’s World Cup finals on Sunday? While I’m not a dedicated sports fan, I am very much a fan of talented women taking up space, speaking their mind, and celebrating their accomplishments as aggressively as men. Reading the sexist and shaming language towards Megan Rapinoe and her teammates on the US women’s national team has been frustrating, but it’s nice to see more Americans rallying around them and also using this opportunity to champion equal pay for the players.
Why South Asian men are so obsessed with Drake // This essay explored a question I never knew I could ask. I just want to share a great quote from Sana Saeed about the problematic nature of South Asian men’s identification with Drake: “I think Drake represents a sort of ‘soft’ blackness to a lot of young Desi guys — he’s someone who can be emulated in a way that Kanye or Lil Wayne or J. Cole or Travis Scott can’t be…He raps about emotions, he says ‘mashAllah’ and ‘wallahi,’ he smokes shisha and surrounds himself with Lebanese guys. He’s light-skinned, sports a beard; he’s from Toronto. None of this is to talk about how Drake owns or experiences his own blackness — but how easy it is to project a softer blackness on him when you’re not black, but part of another minority community. In the simplest terms: He’s seen as encompassing a non-threatening blackness.”
That’s My Ariel // Disney announced the casting of Halle Bailey from the duo ChloexHalle for the role of Ariel in the upcoming live-action version of The Little Mermaid. The decision has been met with some controversy of course with many arguing that this has “ruined their childhood” because Halle is black. A common critique has been that casting Halle as Ariel would be like casting a white woman to be Mulan or Tiana. In those instances, the characters’ racial and ethnic background is central to their stories so it wouldn’t make sense to cast a white actress in their roles. Even if the Ariel fairy tale is based in Denmark, Ariel is still a mermaid, an imaginary creature where whiteness has zero consequence or value to her being. Reinterpreting Ariel as a mermaid who happens to have darker skin in no way changes the story and simply affirms more women. What’s frustrating about the backlash is that Halle has had to limit comments on her social media and Disney actually deleted their post about her because of the negativity. If you haven’t had a chance to hear her music, I suggest you do that now while the racists cry themselves to sleep.
I love getting your feedback and suggestions for the newsletter, so please send me what you’re noting.
Have a good weekend!
— Nesima