This is NPR's life kit and I'm Megan Kane.

And this is the moment our guest, this episode, had a sort of aha moment.

I had just turned 34 and I had recently gotten married and I had a small child

and I had spent two hours putting her to bed and it was only eight o'clock and I was exhausted

and I stared out into a living room that was full of toys and crushed blueberries

and I looked at my husband and I was like, what happened to our life?

Liz is the author of The Rocket Years, how your 20s launched the rest of your life

because while 30-something Liz's life was pretty great, you know, great family,

cool job, things still felt, you know, a bit settled down.

When I was in my 20s, life had felt so fluid and full of possibilities.

All of a sudden, over the span of a few years, I had made decisions that I didn't even realize

I was making at the time that had sort of set me on a trajectory that would be my life

for the next 40 years. Liz dug deeper to better understand how all of her choices and her 20s

impacted her life and lucky for us, she's a journalist and she shared her work.

That started me on this course of exploring the big decisions that we make in our 20s

and looking at data and research about what we know about how those decisions will play out in life.

This episode exploring the decisions of The Rocket Years.

Now, I talked with Liz before the pandemic hit, but her advice feels particularly relevant

these days because lots of people are questioning how they want to live and how they want to get there

and the good news is there is no one right way to do your 20s. Liz says it's more about

purposeful exploration.

Liz, the last thing I want people to do because you have so much good info in this book

...