We’re Thinking About Young Adulthood All Wrong

The notion that your 20s are the best years of your life is more rumor than reality. It shows up in songs, films, ads, social-media posts—but it says more about Americans’ idealization of youth than it does about what it actually feels like to be young today. The 2024 World Happiness Report found that when American adults were asked to rate the extent to which they were living their “best possible life,” those over 60 answered the most positively, followed by 45-to-59-year-olds. People younger than 30 trailed behind. Still, the idea that young adults ought to be at peak happiness is tough to shake, a cliché passed down by older people who know better. A 2021 YouGov poll found that the group most likely to think that their 20s would be their best years are 18- and 19-year-olds who haven’t y