Why You Should Challenge Those Self-Imposed Career and Life Deadlines
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Here's your money briefing for Thursday, July 13th.
I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. For some people, age is more than just a number.
What internal timelines and milestones do people commonly feel pressured by?
It represents a series of milestones for accomplishing key goals in life.
There's a lot of pressure, this idea that I should make a certain amount of money by the time I turn 30, that I should have a certain job title. But what I heard from a lot of people, what am I kind of running toward anyway? How much does this milestone even matter?
We'll talk to Wall Street Journal Work and Life columnist Rachel Feinzig after the break.
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Why do generations still agree on milestone ages despite changing behavior?
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Many of us have an internal timeline that dictates by what age we should get promoted at work or buy a home or get married. WSJ Work and Life columnist Rachel Feinzig is here to discuss why it might make sense to toss those preconceived notions aside.
How has the modern economy made hitting traditional milestones harder?
So, Rachel, you mean we can escape the shackles of the adage, time has passed me by?
Many of us are still kind of plagued by the weight of these milestones and the feeling that we're not doing things at the right pace. Our life expectancy is changing and the way that we think about a lot of these things, whether it's work or love or where we live or what we own, should be evolving too.
Why do we have these timelines in our heads that chart milestones as to when things are supposed to happen in our lives?
Well, it's really funny. They just seem to be a part of us. There was one study out of Stanford that showed that the age that we think people should do things, whether it's like get your first job or get married, hasn't really changed that much. So even as we are doing things later and later, people still have this expectation that like I should be getting married at the same age that my parents did or having a kid at the same age that my parents did.
How has the current economy altered that timeline for a lot of people?
Things like buying a house, rising home prices, interest rates. It's just made a lot of the stuff a lot harder.
In what ways did past generations' life paths differ and simplify milestone timing?
Income inequality. There's a lot of things that have happened to the economy over decades that have just made hitting a lot of these milestones a lot harder for people, students. loan debt. A lot of this isn't our fault. We're just in a different financial situation than our parents or grandparents were. So for example, in the Stanford study that I was mentioning, it found that all generations coalesced around a few milestones in your late 20s. So they agreed that like around 26 is the right age to get married, around 27 is the right time to buy a house, and around 28 is the right moment to start a family. But we're not actually doing those things on that timeline anymore, most of us at least.
When people talk about past generations and hitting milestones, we sometimes hear them say their parents had it so easy, or at least they made it look so easy.
In a lot of cases, our parents did have it easier or just different. When I was talking to this professor at Stanford, she made the point, if you go back many decades, people graduated from high school and that was their education. And then they went straight to work. And it made sense to do all of these things in this order, in this kind of compressed timeframe.
How are longer lifespans and changing middle age reshaping when people should hit milestones?
But now our education opportunities are so much greater. The way we think about relationships are different. What we want from our lives are different. And what we can have is different because our lifespans are getting so much longer. And middle age is changing, too. Everything from Botox to fertility treatments to joint replacement surgeries have really evolved over the last few decades.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:28
2
What internal timelines and milestones do people commonly feel pressured by?
0:28–1:06
3
Why do generations still agree on milestone ages despite changing behavior?
1:06–1:52
4
How has the modern economy made hitting traditional milestones harder?
1:52–2:56
5
In what ways did past generations' life paths differ and simplify milestone timing?
2:56–3:58
6
How are longer lifespans and changing middle age reshaping when people should hit milestones?
3:58–4:40
7
How can focusing on your own timeline improve financial outcomes and retirement planning?
4:40–5:45
8
What practical mindset shifts did Rachel Feintzeig recommend for rethinking life deadlines?
5:45–6:58
Speakers
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