TED演講： 20歲光陰不再來

　　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. 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.

　　我20多歲時，遇見我第一位心理治療病患。我當(dāng)時是柏克萊大學(xué)臨床心理學(xué)博士生，她是名叫Alex的26歲女子。第一次會談時，Alex穿著牛仔褲和寬大上衣，一屁股坐在我辦公室的沙發(fā)上，踢掉她的平底鞋，告訴我她是來談男性問題的。聽見這句話時，我松了一口氣;我同學(xué)的第一位病人是縱火犯(笑聲)，我的則是一位想談男性的二十多歲女子。我以為我能搞定這件事。

　　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. "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.

　　事實卻不然。聽著Alex在會談中所說的有趣故事，只需點頭、對真正問題避而不談，對我來說十分輕松?！溉来切露来笰lex說。據(jù)我所知，她說的沒錯。工作、結(jié)婚都是之后的事，孩子是之后的事，甚至死亡也是之后的事，像Alex和我這樣的二十世代有的是時間。

　　But before long, my supervisor pushed me to push Alex about her love life. I pushed back.

　　但不久后，指導(dǎo)教授催促我，督促Alex積極面對愛情生活，我不以為然。

　　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."

　　我說，「沒錯，她有固定約會對象，她和一個蠢蛋上床，但不代表她會和那個家伙結(jié)婚。」

　　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."

　　于是指導(dǎo)教授說，「目前是如此，但或許她會和下一個對象結(jié)婚。此外，讓Alex經(jīng)營婚姻的最佳時機(jī)，就是在她結(jié)婚前?！?/p>

　　That's what psychologists call an "Aha!" moment. That was the moment I realized, 30 is not the new 20.

　　這就是心理學(xué)家所謂的「啊哈!」時刻。那一刻，我領(lǐng)悟到三十世代并非新二十世代。

　　Yes, people settle down later than they used to, but that didn't make Alex's 20s a developmental downtime. That made Alex's 20s a developmental sweet spot, and we were sitting there blowing it.

　　沒錯，人們比以往更晚成家立業(yè)，但不代表二十世代是Alex的發(fā)展停滯期，而是Alex的最佳發(fā)展時機(jī)，我們卻坐視這段時光白白流逝。

　　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 twenty somethings everywhere.

　　此時我才明白，所謂善意的忽視確實是個問題，將造成嚴(yán)重后果。不僅對Alex和她的愛情生活來說如此，對所有二十世代的事業(yè)、家庭和未來亦然。

　　There are 50 million twenty somethings 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.

　　目前美國有五千萬名二十世代人口，大約占總?cè)丝诘?5%，或者說100%，如果考慮到任何邁入成年期的人都經(jīng)歷過二十世代。

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

　　現(xiàn)場的二十世代請舉手，我非常希望在現(xiàn)場見到二十世代聽眾。太好了!你們都棒極了。如果你和二十世代共事、如果你的戀人是二十世代、如果你關(guān)心二十世代，我想看到-好，棒極了!二十世代十分重要。

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

　　因此我專門研究二十世代，因為我認(rèn)為這五千萬名二十世代中的每一位，都該知道心理學(xué)家、社會學(xué)家、神經(jīng)學(xué)家及生育專家都知道的事：二十世代是最單純、但最具可塑性的階段，對工作、愛情和幸福來說，也許甚至對全世界來說

　　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. 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.

　　這并非我個人的觀點，而是事實。我們知道，人生中80% 最具決定性的時刻發(fā)生于35歲前，這意味著定義你人生的決定、經(jīng)歷和「啊哈!」時刻，10個中有8個發(fā)生于30歲中旬前。超過40歲的人別慌，我想在座聽眾應(yīng)該沒問題。

　　We know that more than half of Americans are married or are living with or dating their future partner by 30. 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.

　　我們知道，一份職業(yè)的最初十年對你未來的收入影響甚巨;我們知道半數(shù)以上的美國人，30歲前即和終生伴侶結(jié)婚、同居或約會;我們知道大腦于二十世代歷經(jīng)第二次及最后一次成長高峰，以轉(zhuǎn)型為成人期。這意味著無論你打算如何改變自己，此刻正是最佳時機(jī)。

　　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. So your 20s are the time to educate yourself about your body and your options.

　　我們知道性格于二十世代的變化勝于人生其他階段;我們知道女性生育高峰期是28歲，35歲之后則每況愈下，因此二十世代正是了解自我身體狀況及選擇的最佳時機(jī)。

　　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. 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.

　　因此，當(dāng)我們談到兒童發(fā)展，我們都知道，最初五年是大腦發(fā)展語言和情感依附的關(guān)鍵期，是日常生活對未來發(fā)展影響甚巨的階段，但我們較少聽說的是所謂的成人發(fā)展。二十世代正是成人發(fā)展關(guān)鍵期。

　　But this isn't what twentysomethings are hearing. Newspapers talk about the changing timetable of adulthood. 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.

　　但二十世代不曾聽過這一點，報紙談?wù)摰目偸浅扇穗A段的改變。研究人員稱二十世代為青春期的延續(xù)，新聞記者賦予二十世代一些愚蠢的稱號，例如「啃老族」和「大孩子」，確實如此。文化使然，我們輕忽了成人階段的決定性十年。

　　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.

　　倫納德?伯恩斯坦(著名指揮家)說，欲達(dá)成偉大成就，需要一個計畫和不甚充裕的時間。確實如此嗎?因此，當(dāng)你拍著一位二十世代的頭說：「你的人生還有十年才開始。」你認(rèn)為會發(fā)生什么事?什么也不會發(fā)生。你剝奪了那個人的迫切感和雄心，不會發(fā)生任何結(jié)果。

　　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."

　　日復(fù)一日地，聰明、有趣的二十世代，如同你們或你們的子女，前來我辦公室說類似以下的話：「我知道我男友不適合我，但這段感情不能當(dāng)真，只是打發(fā)時間罷了?！够蚴?，「每個人都說，我只要在30歲前展開事業(yè)就沒問題。」

　　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."

　　但之后他們開始這么說：「我的二十世代即將結(jié)束，卻一事無成，我最好從大學(xué)畢業(yè)那天就開始投履歷表?！?/p>

　　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.

　　然后他們開始這么說：「二十世代的約會就像玩大風(fēng)吹，大家四處游蕩、樂在其中，但30歲左右音樂逐漸停止，大家開始就座。

　　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."

　　我不想成為唯一站著的人，因此有時我覺得和丈夫結(jié)婚，只因為他是30歲時離我最近的椅子。」

　　Where are the twentysomethings here? Do not do that.

　　在座的二十世代?千萬別這么做。

　　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.

　　好，聽起來像是說笑，但別誤會，其中的風(fēng)險極大。當(dāng)許多事延宕到三十世代，將造成三十世代極大的壓力。展開事業(yè)、選擇居住地、尋找伴侶、在極短時間內(nèi)生兩三個孩子，這些事大多無法同時兼顧。如近期研究結(jié)果顯示，在三十世代同時完成這些事，難度和壓力都將變得更大。

　　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. 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?"

　　千禧年后的中年危機(jī)不在于是否買輛紅色跑車，而在于意識到無法擁有現(xiàn)在渴望的事業(yè)，意識到無法生出現(xiàn)在想要的孩子，或無法替孩子生出兄弟姊妹。太多三十世代及四十世代看看自己，然后望著坐在房間另一頭的我，開始談?wù)撍麄兊亩来骸肝耶?dāng)時在做什么?在想什么?」

　　I want to change what twentysomethings are doing and thinking.

　　我希望改變二十世代的做法和想法。

　　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. 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."

　　以下是關(guān)于如何著手的故事。這是關(guān)于一位名叫Emma的女子的故事。25歲時，Emma來到我辦公室，因為她-根據(jù)她的說法-正經(jīng)歷身份危機(jī)。她說，她認(rèn)為自己或許想從事藝術(shù)或娛樂工作，但尚未下定決心，因此過去幾年她暫時擔(dān)任餐飲服務(wù)生。為了省錢，她和脾氣的展現(xiàn)更勝于抱負(fù)的男友同居。盡管她的二十世代充滿艱辛，她之前的生活更是困難重重。她經(jīng)常于會談時哭泣，但恢復(fù)平靜后，她說，「你無法選擇家庭，但可以選擇朋友?！?/p>

　　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 ... ." 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?"

　　某天，Emma走進(jìn)辦公室，把頭倚在膝蓋上哭了將近一個小時。她剛買了一本新通訊錄，花了整個上午填寫連絡(luò)人資料，但接著，她茫然地盯著以下文字后的空白：「發(fā)生緊急情況時，請撥打…」她幾乎是歇斯底里地看著我說，「如果出車禍，誰會陪在我身邊?如果得癌癥，誰會照顧我?」

　　Now in that moment, it took everything I had not to say, "I will." 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.

　　當(dāng)時，我費盡心力才忍住說「我會」的沖動。但Emma需要的并非一位對她關(guān)懷備至的治療師，Emma需要更好的生活，我知道這是她的機(jī)會。自從治療Alex后，我學(xué)到很多，我不會坐視Emma的決定性十年白白流逝。

　　So over the next weeks and months, I told Emma three things that every twentysomething, male or female, deserves to hear.

　　因此，接下來幾周、幾個月中，我告訴Emma三件每位二十世代-無論男女-都該聆聽的忠告。

　　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. 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.

　　首先，我要Emma忘了她的身份危機(jī)，累積一些身份資本。至于累積身份資本，我指的是進(jìn)行某些增加自我價值的事，進(jìn)行某些有助于達(dá)成理想中的自己的投資。我不知道Emma的工作前景，沒人知道任何工作的前景，但我確實知道這一點：身份資本將衍生身份資本。因此，此時正是接受那份跨國工作、實習(xí)職位和你想嘗試的創(chuàng)業(yè)的時機(jī)。

　　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.

　　我并非反對二十世代進(jìn)行探索，但我不贊同無意義的探索。順帶一提，那并非探索，而是浪費時間。我要Emma進(jìn)行有意義的工作探索。

　　Second, I told Emma that the urban tribe is overrated. 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.

　　其次，我告訴Emma，人們高估了城市部落(Urban Tribes)。好友是載你去機(jī)場的絕佳人選，但二十世代群聚的對象在于志同道合的同齡族群，侷限于相識者、彼此知道的事、相似的思考模式、相仿的說話方式和相近的工作地點。新資本、

　　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.

　　新約會對象幾乎總是來自圈外，新事物來自我們所謂的弱連結(jié)，例如朋友的朋友的朋友。因此-沒錯，半數(shù)二十世代并未就業(yè)或擁有全職工作，但其中一半并非如此，弱連結(jié)正是使你加入那個族群的方式。半數(shù)新職位不曾公布，因此，接觸鄰居的老板正是得到那份未公布工作的方法。這并非投機(jī)，而是資訊傳播原理。

　　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. 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.

　　最后，同樣重要的是，Emma認(rèn)為你無法選擇家庭，但可以選擇朋友。以她的成長經(jīng)歷來說確實如此，但身為二十世代，Emma很快就得選擇自己的家庭，當(dāng)她和某人結(jié)為連理、建立屬于自己的家庭時。我告訴Emma，此時正是她選擇家庭的時機(jī)。你或許認(rèn)為，相較于20歲、甚至25歲，30歲是較適當(dāng)?shù)某杉視r機(jī)，我同意這一點。

　　But grabbing whoever you're living with or sleeping with when everyone on Facebook starts walking down the aisle is not progress. 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.

　　但是當(dāng)所有Facebook上的朋友開始步入禮堂時，套牢某個和你同居或上床的人，這并非完成某項進(jìn)展。經(jīng)營婚姻的最佳時機(jī)正是結(jié)婚前，這是指如同看待工作般用心看待愛情。家庭的選擇是有意識的選擇;選擇你想要的人和生活，而非僅是達(dá)成目標(biāo)或打發(fā)時間-與恰巧選擇你的人。

　　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的后續(xù)情況如何?好，我們翻閱那本通訊錄，她發(fā)現(xiàn)一位前室友的親戚任職于他州的藝術(shù)博物館，那個弱連結(jié)協(xié)助她在當(dāng)?shù)卣业揭环莨ぷ?，那份工作給了她離開同居男友的理由。

　　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."

　　5年后的今天，她成了博物館特殊活動規(guī)劃者，她和一位用心選擇的人結(jié)婚。她愛她的新職業(yè)，她愛她的新家庭。她寄給我一張卡片，上面寫著：「現(xiàn)在緊急連絡(luò)人一欄似乎不夠大了?！?/p>

　　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. 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.

　　Emma的故事使這件事聽來輕而易舉，但這就是我喜愛與二十世代共事的原因-幫助他們十分容易。二十世代就像剛離開洛杉幾國際機(jī)場的飛機(jī)，準(zhǔn)備前往西岸某處，起飛后，航線稍微偏移，即降落阿拉斯加或斐濟(jì)的差別。同樣地，在21或25歲，甚至29歲，一場有益的談話、一次充分的休息、一場卓越的TED演講，對未來幾年、甚至幾代都有極大影響。

　　So here's an idea worth spreading to every twentysomething you know. 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:

　　因此，這是一個值得分享給每一位你認(rèn)識的二十世代的想法。這就像我于Alex的會談中所領(lǐng)悟到的道理一樣容易，這就是我現(xiàn)在有幸能時時給予像Emma一樣的二十世代的忠告：

　　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. (Applause)

　　三十世代并非新二十世代，因此，掌握你的成年時期、累積一些身份資本、利用你的弱連結(jié)、選擇你的家庭。別受限于你不知道或不曾做過的事，此刻你正在決定你的人生，謝謝。(掌聲)