Marcos Salazar Talks with Us About the Challenges Faced by Twentysomethings Today

New Harbinger Publications: You come away from reading The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide thinking that being twenty-five years old now is different from being twenty-five in 1955, or even 1975. What are some ways in which this generation is different than previous generations?

Marcos Salazar: Well, we are certainly not the first generation to travel through school and make the transition into the working world. Millions of college graduates in the past have done it, so what you may ask what makes today’s twentysomethings so special that they need a guide to life during their twenties? Why not use the advice given to previous generations of, “Study hard, get good grades, go to college, find a steady job, get married, buy a house, raise a couple of kids, and have a nice life.” It certainly wasn’t a smooth ride for everyone, but this life philosophy provided a solid line to follow and was a logical path for success and stability. So the truth is leaving academia and entering the working world is not unique to our generation. However, what is unique is that the world twentysomethings are entering into after graduation is not the same one their parents transitioned into during their twenties. What has emerged at the end of the twentieth century is a new social and economic reality and it is making the advice used by previous generations inapplicable to many of the challenges that twentysomethings are facing today.

NHP: You discuss globalization in your book; how do you feel globalization is affecting twentysomethings?

MS: We are now living in a global economy characterized by accelerated scientific and technological breakthroughs, rapid change, endless amounts of information, and an unprecedented level of choice. When I graduated college in 2000, we were at the peak of this information age economy with the dot.com boom. The kind of workers that were in demand then were people who were good at applying theoretical and analytical knowledge such as computer programmers who could crank out code or MBAs who could crunch numbers. But just a few years later, this is no longer the case. Psychologist Daniel Goleman, author of the best-selling book Working with Emotional Intelligence has found during his research that the rules for work are changing and that we are now being judged by a different kind of criteria. It’s no longer about how smart we are or by our training and expertise, but also by how we handle ourselves and others. These often flies in the face of what we are told is important in school because academic abilities are largely irrelevant to this standard. The new measure focuses much more on personal qualities, such as initiative and empathy, adaptability and persuasiveness and these are psychological skills that are not being cultivated in our academic institutions.

NHP: What are some psychological skills that twentysomethings need to help them adapt to life after college?

MS: In the past, young people were told that math, science, and technical skills were a permanent ticket to success and much of today’s educational system is still a reflection of this thinking. However, more and more psychological research is showing that success in today’s new economy takes much more than intellectual excellence, technical expertise, and “book smarts.” What is required is a new kind of intelligence—psychological intelligence—and this shift can be seen in what businesses are wanting in new hires. In 1990, a national survey by Anthony Carneval and his colleagues asked employers what they were looking for in entry-level workers. Out of seven desired traits that were listed, only one was academic: competence in reading, writing, and math. All the others were psychological in nature and what Goleman and other psychologists have found is that in order to succeed in today’s working world, a different type of intelligence is needed that includes psychological skills such as:

• High levels of self-awareness
• Strong self-esteem
• Regulation of one’s emotional state
• Initiative and self-motivation
• Discipline and persistence
• Empathy and relationship building
• Conflict management
• Optimism
• Decision-making skills
• Goal-setting and big picture thinking
• Innovation and entrepreneurship
• Creativity and design
• Leadership

But if you look at the skills above, how many of them were directly taught to students during their educational career? Most likely none of them and a major problem that today’s graduates are facing is that they’re coming out of college equipped with a set of skills that are becoming less and less important in today’s working world.

Now, my point here is not to bash our educational system. I loved my college experience and would not trade it for anything in the world. However, we must acknowledge and accept the fact that the rules of the working world are rapidly transforming and as they continue to change and evolve, so do the skills that graduates need to adapt and excel during their postcollege years. Since our educational system is not providing twentysomethings with these skills, one of the main purposes of The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide is to show twentysomethings how they can develop the psychological intelligence that is becoming indispensable in today’s ever-changing, ultra competitive, global economy.

NHP: What are some of the other challenges twentysomethings are facing today?

MS: I think one of the other major challenges twentysomething are facing today is the countless array of options to choose from in virtually every aspect of their lives. Making all the decisions needed to create the kind of life they want has become far from an easy task for twentysomethings. In fact, figuring out where you want to go with they life after college can be is one of the most distressing aspects of the turbulent twenties. I interviewed Psychologist Barry Schwartz from Swarthmore College who has studied this tyranny of choice experienced by twentysomethings and he told me that there is one question you don’t ask seniors: “What are you going to be doing after graduation.” This is because most of them become paralyzed because they can no longer cultivate all of their talents in class, organizations, and sports and have to decide on only one. So what usually happens is they end up spending a year to figure out what that thing is and soon one year stretches into five years.

During our youth most of the decisions on where to go in life are narrowed down by the structured and straightforward path of our educational system. But as soon graduation comes around, this path bursts into a million different roads to travel down. Because twentysomethings relied so long on the structure of school to help guide all their major life decisions, having to now make them all on their own can often be uncharted territory and cause them to feel lost and helpless when faced with all the options in the world outside of school.

NHP: Do you think today’s colleges are preparing students for life after college? Are there classes or activities that students can participate in that would help in this transition?

MS: I think many of the difficulties twentysomethings face today are compounded by the fact that students are never really prepared to deal with the actual challenges they face after college. For example, in college there were never any classes on how to make good decisions or how to deal with today’s overabundance of choice. It’s still amazes me that there is no real instruction on making decisions in our educational system even though it is such a fundamental skill that affects virtually every aspect of our lives. As Schwartz told me, “This means for the time being it is up to individuals to pick up these skills on their own.” Part of the purpose of The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide is to show twentysomethings how to develop the psychological intelligence needed to deal with challenges they face and begin making the right decisions for what they personally want to do with their life.

If there is one class I would recommend taking in college it would be some type of entrepreneurship class. These classes not only teach you about business in the outside world, but they also teach many important life skills such as learning how to be creative, understanding the need for certain things in the market, how to work with others to get what you want accomplished and just pain creativity and innovation skills. I know that there are many colleges right now trying to integrate entrepreneurship programs and I hope others follow suit. The other classes I would recommend would of course psychology class. While most of the classes are not applied psychology, in world where we are working more and more with people all over the globe, I recommend learning as much as you can about who you are as well as the behavior of others.

NHP: Please explain the post-college blues.

MS: One of the most alarming discoveries I came across during my research of the turbulent twenties was so many graduates told me that either they had become depressed or knew of fellow twentysomethings who had developed major depression. Along with depression, many spoke about feeling extremely nervous about how their life was unfolding because they did not know what the next step was and felt like they were simply wondering through their twenties. Because of nature of this transitional period, it is extremely common to struggle with an array of negative emotions that arise from all the challenges they face after college.

Many of the symptoms that twentysomethings said they experience after college are:

• Difficulty concentrating or making decisions
• Feelings of worthlessness or guilt
• Focusing on failure at motherhood
• Excessive anxiety
• Lack of confidence
• Feeling of being overwhelmed
• Sadness
• Loss of interest in normal activities
• Tiredness
• Feeling like they’re not good enough
• Impaired concentration or memory
• Inability to cope
• Despondency or despair
• Hopelessness

As I spoke with both younger and older twentysomethings, I found that there are two distinct times during the turbulent twenties that graduates are most susceptible to the postcollege blues. The first is right after graduation and the reason why this is such a vulnerable period to develop the postcollege blues is because there’s never been any other time in which so many aspects of life change so quickly and drastically. From work and career, to finances, to relationships, to coping with creating a new vision of self, so many parts of life can be up in the air. What’s worse is that twentysomethings have to attend to them all at once, which can overwhelm them and create a feeling like they don’t have any control over the important areas of their lives.

The second point in which twentysomethings can develop the postcollege blues is during the mid-to-late twenties. It is at this point that it dawns on them that five or more years have passed since graduation and their life is not where they thought it would be when they planned it all out during college. For example, when twentysomethings were younger they most likely thought that by their mid-to-late twenties they would have a great paying job that they loved, a defined career and a plan to change the world, a great group of friends, dating someone seriously, possibly engaged or married, making payments on their new house and in general, have their life more settled. But most twentysomethings have only a few, if any, of these things present in their lives. Most likely, the job they are in is not their dream job, they are not settled in any type of career, not married (or have not even met anyone who comes close to that point), renting a small studio that takes up half their paycheck or living with a group of other twentysomethings frat and sorority style, can’t even come close to affording a house, not making much money and quite possibly, living back home with the parents. At this point they also have accept the fact that they cannot change the world so easily or accomplish all that they want as fast as they could during their academic years.

One of the most powerful elements of both forms of the postcollege blues is that during this time twentysomethings begin to come face-to-face with their mortality. Right after college it slowly dawns on them that this way of life is gone forever and they will never be able to relive their undergraduate years. While some of the twentysomethings I spoke to were going to graduate school, every one of them said it just wasn’t the same as undergrad. For those of in their mid-to-late twenties, the dread of turning thirty can make them feel like another part of their life is over and there is no going back. In both forms of the postcollege blues, the fact that time is passing by becomes a much more prominent fixture in their minds and they begin understanding that there are things in life that they will never be able to experience again in the same manner.

NHP: You say that twentysomethings need to develop a “new vision of self ” after college. What do you mean by that?

MS: After graduation, the educational path twentysomethings have followed all their lives disappears and they are quickly forced to create their own structure and a revised identity in a whole new world outside of college. This major life transition triggers an intense period of reevaluating who they are and who they want to become—what I describe as a search for a new vision of self. What is interesting is that this search is a universal experience among graduates and it all stems from having to answer that one basic question that confronts every college graduate as soon as they step off campus: What do I want to do with the rest of my life? However, as soon as they ask this existential question, they quickly realize that there isn’t a clear and easy answer. In fact, by asking it they open up the floodgates to countless others: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where am I going? What are my passions in life? Which direction do I want to go in? How do I deal with all the choices out there? Am I making the right decisions? Why is the real world so different than I pictured it? Why is it so difficult to meet people? Will I achieve all the dreams I had in college? Will I ever find a job that I love? Am I an adult? Will I ever truly be happy?

So when I use the phrase “vision of self,” I mean in terms of a vision of who you are and who you want to become and because graduates are forced to say good-bye to the student identity they’ve lived with all their lives, they now have to create a new vision of self to guide them through the rest of their existence.

NHP: Is this period of life —the twenties —a time of crisis?

MS: Over the past few years there's been talk about how today's postcollege transition will cause you to experience a "crisis" during your twenties. Joining the ever-popular adolescent crisis, thirtysomething crisis, and mid-life crisis, if we were to follow this rationale by adding a quarterlife crisis to the list, it would mean our entire life is just one big crisis! More importantly, a crisis by definition is something that is abnormal. People are not supposed to live in crisis mode, but the fact is almost every twentysomething I have spoken to has struggled with adjusting to life after college. The truth is all these feelings of anxiety, stress, and confusion are normal and natural responses to such a major life change. So to call it a crisis is to completely misconstrue what is actually happening. Sure, it is a catchy term to use, but it is inaccurate and I think can potentially cause major harm by making people feel like they are abnormal for having such feelings. This then perpetuates all the negative feelings twentysomethings are feeling because they feel like they are the only ones feeling like this, which of course is exactly the opposite of what I want to do.

As I said in the introduction to The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide it's true that twentysomethings who are unable or refuse to deal with the challenges of the turbulent twenties can develop serious psychological problems, such as intense feelings of doubt, anxiety, and depression—what I describe as the postcollege blues. But to label this whole period in life as a crisis is to subscribe to the view that life is something that one must endure rather than explore and enjoy. To believe that life during the twenties is eventually going to turn into a crisis is to expect to be automatically doomed after graduation. Instead, I will try to take a much more optimistic approach to what graduates are experiencing after college because our twenties don't have to be all about stress, frustration, and disappointment. Rather, this time can be a great opportunity for self-discovery, self-fulfillment, and self-actualization.