20something

Surrounded by possibility but unsure of your direction? You’re not alone. If you’re in your twenties, you’re likely feeling the combination of the excitement of this defining decade and the pressure to figure out your entire life. The thrill of newfound independence and opportunity can be quickly squelched by worry, disillusionment, or disappointment. Like thousands of other twenty somethings, you may have experienced what life coach and quarter-life expert Christine Hassler calls an “Expectation Hangover?.” This manifesto explores the all-important questions and life choices of these turbulent yet exciting years. Twenty somethings may commiserate about the challenges they face, but few resources offer practical lessons or suggestions. In these pages, quarter-life men and women tell their stories, sharing their successes and failures, along with their frustrations and realizations. The author’s insightful commentary and “take away” suggestions provide the tools and skills you need to create change and direction in your life. You’ll recognize and articulate your personal goals, paving the way to what you truly want.

The midtwenties through the midthirties can be a time of difficult transition: the security blankets of college and parents are gone, and it’s suddenly time to make far-reaching decisions about career, investments, and adult identity. When author Christine Hassler experienced what she calls the "twenties triangle", she found that she was not alone. In fact, an entire generation of young women is questioning their choices, unsure if what they’ve been striving for is what they really want. They’re eager to set a new course for their lives, even if that means giving up what they have. Hassler herself left a fast-moving career that wasn’t right for her and instead took the risk of starting her own business. Now, based on her own experience and interviews with hundreds of women, she shares heartfelt stories on issues from career to parents to boyfriends to babies. Yet she also provides practical exercises to enable today’s woman to chart a new direction for her life.

Suitable for academics and practitioners, this book includes research on the implications and social effects computers have had on communication.

Gen Y has been picked apart by analysts, statistics, and trend reports, which often portray 20-somethings in negative, one-dimensional terms like "entitled" and "whiners". In this thought-provoking new book that aims to dispel these stereotypes, journalist Hannah Seligson chronicles the lives of seven individuals who embody this generation, exploring their challenges and ambitions in vivid detail and sketching a picture, through their eyes, of what life is actually like for young adults. Through these first-hand stories, readers will discover the transformational effect this enterprising, open-minded, innovative, and diverse generation is having on society. “Zeitgeist reporter Hannah Seligson details this new path to adulthood in a book that promises to be illuminating, surprising, and provocative— both for Gen Y readers themselves and for people who want to understand this charming yet sometimes infuriating generation. I need this book. What is “nexting” and “jacked”? —Gretchen Rubin, New York Times Bestselling Author of THE HAPPINESS PROJECT and HAPPIER AT HOME

Being 23 is always crazy. But being 23 right now? It can feel like living an inch under the apocalypse. This is a response to that conversation young 20somethings keep having at happy hour, over FaceTime, alone in their brain: I don't know what I'm doing. It's all so crazy. My job's fine, I guess. I want to move. I want a different life, but I'm not sure how to change it and even if I could, to what?Hindsight 20/Something is a chronicle of quarter-life crises--stories of moving to the midwest and losing a lover, losing your mind and changing your pronouns, renting a house with a urinal in the living room, coming out, moving back in with your parents. It's a book-shaped living room of honest friends--two nurses, an architect, a med student, two poets, a teacher, a software engineer, the depressed, the wandering, the anxious--all in their 20s. All here telling you that it's probably not okay right now. And that's okay. Austin Beaton is a poet essayist twenty-something who studied regret at the University of Oregon, where he was a finalist for the Walter and Nancy Kidd Memorial Writing Competition in Poetry. His work has appeared in Boston Accent, Porridge Magazine, Angel City Review and elsewhere. He lives near the Pacific Ocean and gives nicknames.