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Westside Toastmasters is located in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, California

Early Adult Decisions

(18-35 Years of Age)

The early adult years are important in decision-making in our lives. As young adults, we exercise more independence in decision-making, though sometimes without being willing to take responsibility for those decisions.

Like adolescents, young adults seem to have limited capacity to take the long view. Their immediate view of what is happening to them is often generalized as if it were a lifelong condition (egocentric immediacy). In their desire to achieve independence, young adults often make hasty decisions about marriage, career, and their future.

Like adolescents, young adults often make decisions that are the result of the "party-line" of the peer groups to which they belong. Young adults tend to look to other young adults for their lead. They are also strongly influenced by the mass media.

Human insecurity drives young adults to seek recognition and acceptance from other young adults. Like adolescents, many of their decisions and behaviors reflect an attempt to achieve this end. The behavior patterns that result from these decisions often become the basis of short- and long-term problems.

Love, sexuality, and a pragmatic view of the world become important to young adults, though each of these is often understood superficially. The basis for young adult conceptions of these is often drawn from movies, music, and television programs that target the young adult. This is a formula tailor-made for poor decision-making and bad habits.

If the decisions, behavior patterns, and habits developed in young adulthood were to simply come and go with the early years, one could simply wait them out. But this is not the case. All of us are shaped, often for a lifetime, by decisions and habits formed during these important years. As soon as possible, conscious intervention is needed.

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