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.
記得見我第一位心理谘詢顧客時，我才20多歲。當時我是Berkeley臨床心理學在讀博士生。我的第一位顧客是名叫Alex的女性，26歲。
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.
第一次見麵Alex穿著牛仔褲和寬鬆上衣走進來，她一下子栽進我辦公室的沙發上，踢掉腳上的平底鞋，跟我說她想談談男生的問題。當時我聽到這個之後鬆了一口氣。因為我同學的第一個顧客是縱火犯，而我的顧客卻是一個20出頭想談談男生的女孩。我覺得我可以搞定。
But I didn\u0027t 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.
但是我沒有搞定。Alex不斷地講有趣的事情，而我隻能簡單地點頭認同她所說的，很自然地就陷入了附和的狀態。
\"Thirty\u0027s 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.
Alex說：“30歲是一個新的20歲”。沒錯，我告訴她“你是對的”。工作還早，結婚還早，生孩子還早，甚至死亡也早著呢。像Alex和我這樣20多歲的人，什麼都沒有但時間多的是。
But before long, my supervisor pushed me to push Alex about her love life. I pushed back. I said, \"Sure, she\u0027s dating down, she\u0027s sleeping with a knucklehead, but it\u0027s not like she\u0027s 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\u0027s marriage is before she has one.\"
但不久之後，我的導師就要我向Alex的感情生活施壓。我反駁說：“當然她現在正在和別人交往，她現在和一個傻瓜男生睡覺，但看樣子她不會和他結婚的。” 而我的導師說：“不著急，她也許會和下一個結婚。但修複Alex婚姻的最好時期是她還沒擁有婚姻的時期。”
That\u0027s 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\u0027t make Alex\u0027s 20s a developmental downtime.
這就是心理學家說的“頓悟時刻”。正是那個時候我意識到，30歲不是一個新的20歲。的確，和以前的人相比，現在人們更晚才安定下來，但是這不代表Alex就能長期處於20多歲的狀態。
That made Alex\u0027s 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.
更晚安定下來，應該使Alex的20多歲成為發展的黃金時段，而我們卻坐在那裏忽視這個發展的時機。從那時起我意識到這種善意的忽視確實是個問題，它不僅給Alex本身和她的感情生活帶來不良後果，而且影響到處20多歲的人的事業、家庭和未來。
There are 50 million twenty somethings in the United States right now. We\u0027re talking about 15 percent of the population, or 100 percent if you consider that no one\u0027s getting through adulthood without going through their 20s first.
現在在美國，20多歲的人有五千萬，也就是15%的人口，或者可以說所有人口，因為所有成年人都要經曆他們的20多歲。
Raise your hand if you\u0027re in your 20s. I really want to see some twentysomethings here. Oh, yay! Y\u0027all\u0027s awesome. If you work with twentysomethings, you love a twentysomething, you\u0027re losing sleep over twentysomethings, I want to see — Okay. Awesome, twentysomethings really matter.
如果你現在20多歲，請舉手。我很想看到有20多歲的人在這裏。哦，很好。如果你和20多歲的人一起工作，你喜歡20多歲的人，你因為20多歲的人輾轉難眠，我想看到你們。很棒，看來20多歲的人確實很受重視。
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.
因此我專門研究20多歲的人，因為我堅信這五千萬的20多歲的人，每一個人都應該去了解那些心理學家、社會學家、神經學家和生育專家已經知道的事實：你的20多歲是極簡單卻極具變化的時期之一。你20多歲的時光決定了你的事業、愛情、幸福甚至整個世界。
This is not my opinion. These are the facts. We know that 80 percent of life\u0027s 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.
這不是我的看法。這些是事實。我們知道80%決定你生活的時刻發生在35歲之前。這就意味著你生活的重要決定、經曆和突然的領悟，有八成是在你30多歲之前發生的。
People who are over 40, don\u0027t 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\u0027re going to earn. We know that more than half of Americans are married or are living with or dating their future partner by 30.
那些超過40歲的朋友不要驚慌，我想這群人會沒事的。我們知道職業生涯的前10年對你將來的收入有重大影響。我們知道到了30歲的時候，超過半數的美國人會結婚或者和未來的另一半同居或者約會。
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.
我們知道人在20多歲的時候大腦停止第二次也是最後一次重組，以適應成年世界的快速發育階段。這就意味著不管你想怎樣改變自己，現在就是時間改變了。我們知道在20多歲的時候，性格的改變多於生命中任何時期。我們也知道女性的最佳生育時期在28歲的時候達到頂峰，35歲之後生育變得困難。
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\u0027s a time when your ordinary, day-to-day life has an inordinate impact on who you will become.
所以你的20多歲正是了解你自身和選擇的時期。當我們想到孩童的成長時，我們都知道1-5歲是大腦學習語言和感知的重要時期。這個時期，日常的普通生活都會對你的未來道路影響巨大。
But what we hear less about is that there\u0027s such a thing as adult development, and our 20s are that critical period of adult development. But this isn\u0027t what twenty somethings are hearing. Newspapers talk about the changing timetable of adulthood.