20岁的光阴不再来

黄连英

When I was in my 20s， I saw my very first psychotherapy client. I was a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology at Berkeley. She was a 26-year-old woman named Alex.

记得见我的第一位心理咨询顾客时，我才20多岁。当时我是加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校的临床心理学在读博士生。我的第一位顾客是一名叫Alex的26岁女性。

Now Alex walked into her first session wearing jeans and a big slouchy top， and she dropped onto the couch in my office and kicked off her flats and told me she was there to talk about guy problems. Now when I heard this， I was so relieved. My classmate got an arsonist for her first client. And I got a twentysomething who wanted to talk about boys. This I thought I could handle.

第一次见面Alex穿着牛仔裤和宽松上衣走进来，她一下子倒在我办公室的沙发上，踢掉脚上的平底鞋，跟我说她想谈谈关于男生的问题。当时我听到这个话题后松了一口气。因为我同学的第一个顾客是纵火犯，而我的顾客却是一个20出头想谈谈男生的女孩。我觉得我可以搞定。

But I didn"t handle it. With the funny stories that Alex would bring to session， it was easy for me just to nod my head while we kicked the can down the road.

但是我没有搞定。Alex不断地讲有趣的事情，而我只能简单地点头认同她所说的话，很自然地就陷入了附和的状态。

"Thirty"s the new 20，" Alex would say， and as far as I could tell， she"s right. Work happened later， marriage happened later， kids happened later， even death happened later. Twentysomethings like Alex and I had nothing but time.

Alex說：“30岁是一个新的20岁。”没错，我告诉她：“你是对的。”工作还早，结婚还早，生孩子还早，甚至死亡也还早。像Alex和我这样20多岁的人，什么都没有但时间多的是。

But before long， my supervisor pushed me to push Alex about her love life. I pushed back. I said， "Sure， she"s dating down with a knucklehead， but it"s not like she"s going to marry the guy." And then my supervisor said， "Not yet， but she might marry the next one. Besides， the best time to work on Alex"s marriage is before she has one."

但不久之后，我的导师就要我向Alex的感情生活施压。我反驳说：“确实，她现在和一个傻瓜男生约会，但看样子她不会和他结婚的。”而我的导师说：“不着急，她也许会和下一个男生结婚。但修复Alex婚姻的最好时期是她还没拥有婚姻的时期。”

That"s what psychologists call an "Aha！" moment. That was the moment I realized that 30 is not the new 20. Yes， people settle down later than they used to， but that didn"t make Alex"s 20s a developmental downtime.

这就是心理学家说的“顿悟时刻”。正是那个时候我才意识到，30岁不是一个新的20岁。的确，和以前的人相比，现在的人们更晚才安定下来，但是这不代表Alex就能长期处于20多岁的发展停机状态。

That made Alex"s 20s a developmental sweet spot， and we were sitting  there  blowing it. That was when I realized that benign neglect was a real problem， and it had real consequences， not just for Alex and her love life but for the careers and the families and the futures of twenty somethings everywhere.

现在的人们更晚安定下来，那就应该让Alex的20多岁成为发展的黄金时段，而我们却坐在这里忽视这个发展的时机。从那时起我意识到这种无意的忽视是一个大问题，它不仅给Alex本身和她的感情生活带来不良后果，而且影响到处于20多岁的人的事业、家庭和未来。

There are 50 million twentysomethings in the United States right now. We"re talking about 15 percent of the population， or 100 percent if you consider that no one"s getting through adulthood without going through their 20s first.

现在在美国，20多岁的人有五千万，也就是15%的人口，或者可以说所有人口，因为所有成年人都要经历他们的20多岁。

So I specialize in twentysomethings because I believe that every one of those 50 million twen-tysomethings deserves to know what psychologists， sociologists， neurologists and fertility specialists already know：
that claiming your 20s is one of the simplest， yet most transformative things you can do for work， for love， for your happiness， maybe even for the world.

因此我专门研究了20多岁的人，因为我认为这五千万的20多岁的人，每一个人都应该去了解那些心理学家、社会学家、神经学家和生育专家已经知道的事实：你的20多岁是极简单却极具变化的时期之一。你20多岁的时光决定了你的事业、爱情、幸福甚至整个世界。

This is not my opinion. These are the facts. We know that 80 percent of life"s most defining moments take place by age 35. That means that eight out of 10 of the decisions and experiences and moments that make your life what it is will have happened by your mid-30s.

这不是我的看法，这些是事实。我们知道80%决定你人生的时刻发生在35岁之前。这就意味着你人生的重要决定、经历和突然的领悟，有八成是在你30多岁之前发生的。

We know the brain caps off its second and last growth spurt in your 20s as it rewires itself for adulthood， which means that whatever it is you want to change about yourself， now is the time to change it. We know that personality changes more during your 20s than at any other time in life， and we know that female fertility peaks at age 28， and things get tricky after age 35.

我們知道人在20多岁的时候大脑停止第二次也是最后一次重组，以适应成年世界的快速发育阶段。这就意味着不管你想怎样改变自己，但现在就是时间改变了。我们知道在20多岁的时候，性格的改变多于生命中任何时期。我们也知道女性的最佳生育时期在28岁的时候达到顶峰，35岁之后生育变得困难。

So your 20s are the time to educate yourself about your body and your options.Consequently， when we think about child development， we all know the first five years are a critical period for language and attachment in the brain. It"s a time when your ordinary， day-to-day life has an huge  impact on who you will become.

所以你的20多岁正是了解你自身和做选择的时期。因此，当我们想到孩童的成长时，我们都知道1-5岁是大脑学习语言和感知的重要时期。那是一个日常的普通生活都会对你的未来道路影响巨大的时期。

Researchers call the 20s an extended adolescence. Some journalists often fabricate silly nicknames for Twentysomethings such as "twixters" and "kidults". It"s true.  As a culture， we have trivialized what is actually the defining decade of adulthood.

研究者称20多岁是延长的青春期。记者就引用傻傻的外号称呼20多岁的人，比如“徘徊者”和“大小孩”。确实，作为一种文化，我们所忽视的正是对成年起到决定性作用的十年（从20岁到30岁）。

Leonard Bernstein said that to achieve great things， you need a plan and not quite enough time. Isn"t that true？ So what do you think happens when you pat a twentysomething on the head and you say， "You have 10 extra years to start your life"？ What do you think it has changed？ Nothing happens. You have robbed that person of his urgency and ambition， and absolutely nothing happens.

雷昂纳德·伯恩斯坦说过：“要想取得成就，你需要一个计划和紧迫的时间。”这是大实话啊！所以当你拍着一个20多岁的人的脑袋，跟他说：“你有额外的10年去开始你的生活。”你觉得这改变了什么？什么都没改变。你只是夺走了那个人的紧迫感和雄心壮志，绝对没有改变什么。

Then every day， smart， interesting twentysomethings like you or like your sons and daughters come into my office and say things like this：
"I know my boyfriend"s no good for me， but this rela-tionship doesn"t count. I"m just killing time." Or they say， "Everybody says as long as I get started on a career by the time I"m 30， I"ll be fine."

然后每一天，那些聪明有趣的20多岁的人就像你们和你们的儿子、女儿一样，走入我的办公室开始说：“我知道我的男朋友对我不够好，但是我们的关系不算数。我只是在消磨时光而已。”或者他们会说：“每个人都告诉我只要能在30岁的时候开始我的事业，这就足夠了。”

But then it starts to sound like this：
"My 20s are almost over， and I have nothing to show for myself. I had a better resume the day after I graduated from college." And then it starts to sound like this：
"Dating in my 20s was like musical chairs. Everybody was running around it and having fun， but then sometime around 30 it"s  like the music turned off and everybody started sitting down."

但是这些话实际听上去却是：“我马上就要30岁了，却根本就没有东西展示。我只是在大学毕业时有过一份最漂亮的简历。”或是这样：“我20多岁时的约会就像抢椅子游戏。每个人都绕着椅子跑，随便玩一玩，但是快30岁的时候就像音乐停止了，所有人开始坐下。”

When a lot has been pushed to your 30s， there is enormous thirtysomething pressure to jump-start a career， pick a city， partner up， and have two or three kids in a much shorter period of time. Many of these things are incompatible， and as research is just starting to show， simply harder and more stressful to do all at once in our 30s.

当很多事都被堆积到你30多岁的时候，就会有巨大压力，在很短的时间内快速启动一项事业，挑一个城市，找到伴侣，生两三个孩子。这些事大多是不能同时完成的，正如研究表明，在30岁的时候想要工作、生活一步到位的难度很高，压力很大。

Too many thirtysomethings and fortysomethings look at themselves， and at me， sitting across the room，saying about their 20s， "What was I doing？ What was I thinking？" I want to change what twentysomethings are doing and thinking.

太多三四十岁的人看看他们自己，看看我，坐在屋子里谈论自己的20多岁，“我当时都干什么了？我当时都想啥了？”我想改变那些现在20多岁的人的所思所为。

Thirty is not the new 20， so claim your adulthood， get some identity capital， use your weak ties， pick your family. Don"t be defined by what you didn"t know or didn"t do. You"re deciding your life right now.

30岁不是一个新的20岁，所以规划好你的成年生活，获得一些身份认同资本，利用你的弱关系，选择你的家庭。不要被你所不知道的，从未做过的事所禁锢。你现在的作为决定着你的人生。

（本文摘自TED官网：https：//www.ted.com/talks/meg_jay_why_30_is_not_the_new_20？language=zh-cn）