Why 30 is not the new 20.—Meg Jay

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.

在我還是20歲的時候，我見到了我的很第一位心理治療客戶。我是一名在伯克利的臨床心理博士生。她是一名叫做亞歷克斯的二十六歲女性。

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. (Laughter) And I got a twentysomething who wanted to talk about boys. This I thought I could handle.

那時亞歷克斯穿著牛仔褲和一件寬松休閑上衣走進來她的第一場會面，并且她落在我的辦公室里的沙發上同時踢掉她的平底鞋并告訴我她來這兒是為了討論關于男人的問題。此時我聽到這兒，我是很寬慰的。我的同班同學從她的第一位顧客得到的是一個縱火犯。（大笑）而我得到一個想談論關于男孩的二十多歲的人。這是我覺得我能解決的。

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.

但是我沒能解決它。伴隨著亞歷克斯總是給會面帶來的有趣的故事，它對我而言是簡單的僅在我們沿著路踢罐頭的時候（附和） 去點頭就好。

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

“三十歲是新的二十歲，”亞歷克斯總是說，并且我就會說，她是正確的。工作發生在后來，結婚發生在后來，孩子們發生在后來，甚至死亡發生在后來。二十多歲的人像我和亞歷克斯沒有任何東西但是有時間。

But before long, my supervisor pushed me to push Alex about her love life. I pushed back. I said, “Sure, she’s dating down, she’s sleeping 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.”

但是不久以后，我的監督人（監督導師）推動我推進亞歷克斯關于她的情感生活。我推回去。我說，“當然，她正在交往中，她正和一個傻瓜睡覺，但是這不像是她將嫁給那家伙。”然后我的導師就說，“還沒有，但是她可能和下一個人結婚。除外，為了這項工作最好的時間是在亞歷克斯有婚姻之前。”

That’s what psychologists call an “Aha!” moment. That was the moment I realized, 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.

那是心理學家們講的“頓悟！”時刻。那是瞬間我意識到，三十不是新的二十。是的，人們安定更晚比過去的人，但是那不能當作亞歷克斯的二十歲是一個發展的低谷時期。

That made Alex’s 20s a developmental sweet spot, and we were sitting there blowing it. That was when I realized that this sort of 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 twentysomethings everywhere.

那作為亞歷克斯的二十歲的一個發展最佳時間點，而我們正坐在那兒浪費它。那是當我意識到這種善意的忽視是一個真正的問題，而且它不僅給亞歷克斯和她的情感生活而且給到處的二十多歲的人的事業和家庭以及未來帶來真正的后果。

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.

真正的現在美國有五千萬的二十多歲的人。我們是談論百分之十五的人口，或者百分之一百因為你考慮沒有一個人的通過成年時期不經過他們開始的二十多歲。

Raise your hand if you’re in your 20s. I really want to see some twentysomethings here. Oh, yay! Y’all’s awesome. If you work with twentysomethings, you love a twentysomething, you’re losing sleep over twentysomethings, I want to see — Okay. Awesome, twentysomethings really matter.

舉起你的手如果你是在你的二十多歲。我真正的想要看見一些二十多歲的人在這兒。噢，耶！大家令人驚嘆的。如果你和二十多歲的人工作，你愛一個二十多歲的人，你是失眠為了二十多歲的人，我想看看–好。令人驚嘆的，二十多歲的人真的重要。

So I specialize in twentysomethings because I believe that every single one of those 50 million twentysomethings 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.

所以我專門研究二十多歲的人因為我相信那五千萬的二十多歲的人中的每一個人應該了解心理學家，社會學家，神經學家和生育專家以及知道的：那宣布你的二十多歲是最簡單的一個時期，還是最變革的，你能為了工作，為了你的愛情，為了你的幸福，可能甚至為了世界去做些事情。

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 “Aha!” moments that make your life what it is will have happened by your mid-30s.

這不是我的觀點。這些是事實。我們知道生活的最決定性的時刻百分之八十發生在三十五歲。那意味著十分之八的改變你的生活的決定和經歷以及“頓悟！”時刻將發生在你的三十多歲。

People who are over 40, don’t panic. This crowd is going to be fine, I think. We know that the first 10 years of a career has an exponential impact on how much money you’re going to earn. We know that more than half of Americans are married or are living with or dating their future partner by 30.

超過四十歲的人們不要驚慌。這群人是將是好的，我想。我們知道第一個十年的事業有一個指數增長性的影響你將怎么去掙那么多的錢。我們知道有超過一半的美國人在三十歲結婚或者和他們的未來的伴侶同居或交往。

We know that 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.

我們知道大腦停止它的第二次和最后一次突增發育在你的二十多歲就像它自己為了成年時期它重新布線，那意味著無論它是你想要去改變你自己，現在是改變它的時間。我們知道性格的改變在一生中更多的在你的二十多歲期間超過在其他的任何時間里，并且我們知道女性的生育高峰在二十八歲，和十三五歲之后這事會變困難。

So your 20s are the time to educate yourself about your body and your options. So when we think about child development, we all know that 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 inordinate impact on who you will become.

所以你的二十多歲的時間里教學你自己的身體和你的選擇。所以在我們思考關于兒童成長的時候，我們總是知道第一個五年是大腦對語言和聯系的一個批判性的時期。它是一個普通的時期，日常的生活有一個不普通的影響將成就你。

But what we hear less about is that there’s such a thing as adult development, and our 20s are that critical period of adult development. But this isn’t what twentysomethings are hearing. Newspapers talk about the changing timetable of adulthood.但是我們很少聽到關于這兒的多少成年人的發展，而我們的二十歲是成年人的發展的批判性的時期。但是這不是二十多歲的人該聽的。新聞上說改變成年時期的時間表。

Researchers call the 20s an extended adolescence. Journalists coin silly nicknames for twentysomethings like “twixters” and “kidults.” It’s true. As a culture, we have trivialized what is actually the defining decade of adulthood.研究學者叫十二歲的一個學者。

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”? Nothing happens. You have robbed that person of his urgency and ambition, and absolutely nothing happens.

And 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 relationship 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.”

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 résumé 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 and having fun, but then sometime around 30 it was like the music turned off and everybody started sitting down.

I didn’t want to be the only one left standing up, so sometimes I think I married my husband because he was the closest chair to me at 30." Where are the twentysomethings here? Do not do that. Okay, now that sounds a little flip, but make no mistake, the stakes are very high.

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.
當很多事都被擠到你30多歲的時候，就會有巨大壓力，在很短的時間內快速啟動一項事業，挑一個城市，找到伴侶，生兩三個孩子。這些事大多是不能同時完成的，正如研究表明，在30歲的時候要想工作生活一步到位，難度很高，壓力很大。

The post-millennial midlife crisis isn’t buying a red sports car. It’s realizing you can’t have that career you now want. It’s realizing you can’t have that child you now want, or you can’t give your child a sibling.
千禧年后的中年危機并不是一輛紅色跑車。而是意識到你不能擁有你想擁有的事業，意識到你不能擁有你想要的孩子，或者給你的孩子添個兄弟姐妹。

Too many thirtysomethings and fortysomethings look at themselves, and at me, sitting across the room, and say about their 20s, “What was I doing? What was I thinking?” I want to change what twentysomethings are doing and thinking.
太多30多歲40多歲的人看看他們自己，看看我，坐在屋子里談論自己的20多歲，“我當時都干么了？我當時都想啥了？”我想改變現在20多歲人的所思所為。

Here’s a story about how that can go. It’s a story about a woman named Emma. At 25, Emma came to my office because she was, in her words, having an identity crisis. She said she thought she might like to work in art or entertainment, but she hadn’t decided yet, so she’d spent the last few years waiting tables instead.
這里我想講個故事說明問題。這個故事是關于名叫Emma一個女人。她25歲的時候走入我的辦公室，因為用她自己的話說，她有自我認識危機。她說她也許想從事關于藝術或者娛樂的工作，但是她還沒決定。所以取而代之的是她花了過去幾年的時間當服務員。

Because it was cheaper, she lived with a boyfriend who displayed his temper more than his ambition. And as hard as her 20s were, her early life had been even harder. She often cried in our sessions, but then would collect herself by saying, “You can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends.”
為了減少開銷，她和她的男朋友同居，一個脾氣暴躁而無志向的人。正如她悲慘的20多歲，她早年的生活更加悲慘。她經常在談話過程中哭泣，努力鎮定下來后說“你沒辦法選擇你的家庭，但是你可以選擇你的朋友。”

Well one day, Emma comes in and she hangs her head in her lap, and she sobbed for most of the hour. She’d just bought a new address book, and she’d spent the morning filling in her many contacts, but then she’d been left staring at that empty blank that comes after the words "In case of emergency, please call … "
有一天，Emma走進來，她雙手抱頭于膝蓋，然后抽泣了幾乎一個小時。她剛買了一個新的通訊錄本子，然后花了一整個早上的時間填寫她的聯系人信息。當她填到“萬一發生緊急情況，請聯系…”的時候，她沒有任何人可填。

She was nearly hysterical when she looked at me and said, “Who’s going to be there for me if I get in a car wreck? Who’s going to take care of me if I have cancer?” Now in that moment, it took everything I had not to say, “I will.”
她幾乎崩潰地看著我并說，“如果我被車撞了，誰會在那里？假如我得癌癥了，誰會在那里？” 在那種情況下，我花了好大力氣才忍住說“我會。”

But what Emma needed wasn’t some therapist who really, really cared. Emma needed a better life, and I knew this was her chance. I had learned too much since I first worked with Alex to just sit there while Emma’s defining decade went parading by.
Emma所需要的并不是理療師所真正關心的。她需要一個更好的生活，我知道這是她的機會。自Alex開始，我從這份工作上學到了很多，不能只是坐在那里看著Emma十年黃金定型期白白消逝。

So over the next weeks and months, I told Emma three things that every twentysomething, male or female, deserves to hear.
所以接下去的幾個星期幾個月，我告訴Emma三件事，所有20多歲的男生女生都值得聽一聽。

First, I told Emma to forget about having an identity crisis and get some identity capital. By get identity capital, I mean do something that adds value to who you are. Do something that’s an investment in who you might want to be next.
首先，我告訴Emma忘掉她的自我認識危機，去獲得一些身份認定的資本。身份資本是指做增加自我價值的事。為自己下一步想成為的樣子做一些事一些投資。

I didn’t know the future of Emma’s career, and no one knows the future of work, but I do know this: Identity capital begets identity capital. So now is the time for that cross-country job, that internship, that startup you want to try.
我不知道Emma的工作將來是什么樣的，也沒人知道將來的工作是什么樣的，但是我知道：身份資本會創造出更多身份資本。現在是時候去嘗試你想要的海外工作、實習或者新起點。

I’m not discounting twentysomething exploration here, but I am discounting exploration that’s not supposed to count, which, by the way, is not exploration. That’s procrastination. I told Emma to explore work and make it count.
我不是輕視20多歲的自我探索，而是輕視那些隨便玩玩無所謂的探索，或者從某種意義上說那不是探索。那是拖沓！我告訴Emma去探索工作，讓她的探索有所回報。

Second, I told Emma that the urban tribe is overrated.
第二，我告訴Emma不要高估自己的朋友圈。

Best friends are great for giving rides to the airport, but twentysomethings who huddle together with like-minded peers limit who they know, what they know, how they think, how they speak, and where they work. That new piece of capital, that new person to date almost always comes from outside the inner circle.
好朋友會載你去機場，而和“志同道合的朋友” 瞎混的20多歲的人，他們的交際圈、知識面、思維方式、說話方式和工作層面都被限制住了。新的資本或者新的約會對方往往是從內部交際圈之外來的。

New things come from what are called our weak ties, our friends of friends of friends. So yes, half of twentysomethings are un- or under-employed. But half aren’t, and weak ties are how you get yourself into that group. Half of new jobs are never posted, so reaching out to your neighbor’s boss is how you get that un-posted job. It’s not cheating. It’s the science of how information spreads.
新的事情來自我們所謂的“遠的關系”，我們朋友的朋友的朋友。沒錯，半數20多歲的人處在失業和半失業的狀態。但是另外一半的人卻不是這樣的，“遠的關系”正是你融入一個新的群體的紐帶。有半數的新工作從來不公示出來，所以聯絡你鄰居的老板是你找到那些未公示工作的方式。這不叫作弊，這是信息傳播的科學方式。

Last but not least, Emma believed that you can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends. Now this was true for her growing up, but as a twentysomething, soon Emma would pick her family when she partnered with someone and created a family of her own.
最后一點也很重要，Emma相信你無法選擇你的家庭，但是你可以選擇你的朋友。可這只是她成長時期的狀況。作為一個20多歲的人，Emma很快會與某人為伴組建她自己的新家庭。

I told Emma the time to start picking your family is now. Now you may be thinking that 30 is actually a better time to settle down than 20, or even 25, and I agree with you. But grabbing whoever you’re living with or sleeping with when everyone on Facebook starts walking down the aisle is not progress.
我告訴Emma現在就是你選擇你家庭的時候。現在你也許會想相比于20歲，25歲或30歲時組建家庭會更好。我同意你的看法。但是當你Facebook上的朋友都開始步入婚姻殿堂時，你隨便抓一個人一起生活、睡覺絕對不是組建家庭的過程。

The best time to work on your marriage is before you have one, and that means being as intentional with love as you are with work. Picking your family is about consciously choosing who and what you want rather than just making it work or killing time with whoever happens to be choosing you.
經營你婚姻的最佳時間是你還沒結婚的時候，這意味要像你為了工作一樣精心謀劃。選擇你的家庭是有意識地去選擇你想要的人和事，而不是為了結婚或者消磨時光，任意選擇一個正好選擇你的人。

So what happened to Emma? Well, we went through that address book, and she found an old roommate’s cousin who worked at an art museum in another state. That weak tie helped her get a job there. That job offer gave her the reason to leave that live-in boyfriend.
Emma發生了什么變化呢？我們翻了一遍通訊錄，她發現她原來的舍友的表妹在另一個州的一家藝術博物館工作。這層遠關系幫助她在那里得到一份工作。這份工作給她一個理由離開她那同居的男友。

Now, five years later, she’s a special events planner for museums. She’s married to a man she mindfully chose. She loves her new career, she loves her new family, and she sent me a card that said, “Now the emergency contact blanks don’t seem big enough.”
現在五年過去了，她是一名博物館特別活動策劃者。她和一個她用心選擇的男人結婚了。她愛她的事業，她愛她的新家，她寄給我一張賀卡寫道，“現在緊急聯系欄似乎不夠填呢。”

Now Emma’s story made that sound easy, but that’s what I love about working with twentysomethings. They are so easy to help. Twentysomethings are like airplanes just leaving LAX, bound for somewhere west. Right after takeoff, a slight change in course is the difference between landing in Alaska or Fiji.
Emma的故事聽起來簡單，這正是為什么我愛和20多歲人打交道。幫助20多歲的人很容易。20多歲就像離開洛杉磯飛往西部某處的飛機，起飛之后，一點小小變化都會影響到它最終將降落在阿拉斯加還是斐濟。

Likewise, at 21 or 25 or even 29, one good conversation, one good break, one good TED Talk, can have an enormous effect across years and even generations to come. So here’s an idea worth spreading to every twentysomething you know.
同理，在你21歲，25歲甚至29歲的時候，一次好的談話、好的休息、好的TED演講，能在未來的幾年甚至幾代人的時間里帶來巨大的影響。因此這個想法值得傳達給每一個你所認識的20多歲人。

It’s as simple as what I learned to say to Alex. It’s what I now have the privilege of saying to twentysomethings like Emma every single day: 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. Thank you.
這想法就像我后來告訴Alex的話一樣簡單。我應該每天都對像Emma這樣的20多歲的人說：30歲不是一個新的20歲，所以規劃好你的成年生活，獲得一些身份認同資本，利用你的遠關系，選擇你的家庭。不要被你所不知道的，從未做過的事所禁錮。你現在的作為決定著你的人生。謝謝。

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