Why 30 is not the new 20
Meg Jay
Clinical psychologist Meg Jay has a bold message for twentysomethings: Contrary to popular belief, your 20s are not a throwaway decade. In this provocative talk, Jay says that just because marriage, work and kids are happening later in life, doesn’t mean you can’t start planning now. She gives 3 pieces of advice for how twentysomethings can re-claim adulthood in the defining decade of their lives.
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.
And I got a twentysomething who wanted to talk about boys. This I thought I could handle. 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, s
he was right. Work happened later, marriage happened later, kids happened later, even death happened later. Twentysomethings like Alex and I had nothing but time.
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."
That's what psychologists call an "Aha!" moment. That was the moment I realized, 30 is not the 当我20几岁时，我见到了我的第一个需要精神疗法的病人。当时我是一个在伯克利大学读临床心理学的Ph.D学生。她是一位叫Alex的26岁女性。第一次会面时Alex穿了牛仔裤以及略微不修边幅的上衣，进来后直接坐到我办公室中的沙发上，踢掉她的鞋子，然后跟我说她是来跟我讲男性问题的。当我听到这个时，我松了一口气。我的一个同学的第一个病人是一个纵火犯。（笑声）所以说我有一个二十几岁的人想跟我谈谈男生。我以为我能处理好这事。
但我没能办到。Alex在每一次会面时都会带来好笑的故事，因此对我而言点点头，不断拖延出结果的时间是一件非常轻松的事情。Alex会说“三十就是新的二十”，而且就我知道的，她是对的。工作要以后才有，结婚以后才有，孩子以后才有，连死亡都是以后才有。像Alex和我一样是二十几岁的人除了时间外一无所有。
但没过多久，我的监督就催我开始推动Alex的爱情生活。我拒绝了。
我说：“没错，她现在在约会，她和一个笨蛋同床，但这并不表示她会和他结婚。”
然后我的监督说：“现在还没，但她可能会和下一个这样的人结婚。再说，
new 20. 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. 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.
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.
Raise your hand if you're in your 20s. I really want to see some twentysomethings here. Oh, yay! You are all 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.
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.
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. 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, 在Alex的婚事上花费精力的最好时间就是在她结婚之前。”
这就是心理学家们所说的“原来如此！”瞬间。在那一瞬间，我明白了三十岁并不是新的二十岁。没错，人们比以前更晚安顿下来，但这并不说明Alex 的二十几岁这个时间段是她的发展低谷。这使Alex的二十几岁一个发展的良好时期，而我们就坐在那儿荒废它。这时我才明白这种“善意的疏忽”是一个非常现实
的问题，而且它有严重的后果，不仅是对于Alex和她的爱情生活也对于各地的二十几岁的人的家庭与未来。
现在美国有大约5千万二十几岁的人。这大概是总人口的15%，或者说100%如果你考虑到没人能在不经历二十几岁这个阶段的情况下经过成人期。
如果你是二十几岁的话举一下手。我非常想在这儿看到一些二十几岁的人。太好了！你们都棒极了。如果你和二十几岁的人工作，如果你爱一个二十几岁的人，如果你因为二十几岁的人而失眠，我就想看到—好的。棒极了，二十几岁的人非常重要。
我专门研究二十几岁的人，因为我相信这5千万个二十几岁的人中每一个都应该知道每一个心理学家，社会学家，神经学家以及生育专家都知道的：那就是把握你的二十岁这一个阶段是最简单的，但又是最有影响力的你能为你的职业，爱情，幸福，甚至是全世界做的事。
这不是我的观点。这是事实。我们知道一个人的一生中的80%的最重要的时刻发生在35岁。这就意味着每10个决定你的生命会是什么样的的经历与“原来如此！”时刻中有8个发生在三十岁中旬。超过40岁的人，别慌。我估计这个观众没问题。我们知道一份职业中的前10年对于你将会挣多少钱有非常大的影响。我们知道超过一半的美国人30岁之前就和
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. 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. 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. 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.
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." 终生伴侣结婚，同居，或者在约会。我们知道大脑在你二十几岁时为了适应成人期达到第二次也是最后一次成长期的高峰，这说明无论你想改变你自己的什么，现在就是改变它的时间。我们知道相比人生其他阶段二十岁时的个性变化最大，而且我们也知道女性的繁殖能力在28岁时达到峰顶，到35岁之后事情就有点难办了。因此你的二十几岁这个时间段就是告诉自己自己的身体状况以及未来的选择的时候。
因此当我们说到儿童发展，我们都知道前5年是大脑发展语言和爱慕的关键时期。这是一个你的每日生活都会对你的未来产生巨大影响的时间段。但是我们听到的比较少的就是有一个东西叫成人发展，而我们的二十岁这个阶段就是成人发展的关键时期。
但这并不是二十几岁的人所听到的。报纸在描述成人的时间表的变更，研究人员把二十几岁叫做延长的
青春期。新闻记者在给二十几岁的人附加愚蠢的外号，比如“中间者”和“成年儿童”。这是真的。作为一种文化，我们把实际上是成人期中最重要的一个十年列为不重要的东西。
伦纳德伯恩斯坦说过如果想办成大事，就需要一个计划和不足够的时间。这不对吗？所以说当你拍一个二十几岁的人的头然后说：“你还有额外的十年才开始生活”时你认为会发生什么？什么也不会发生。你剥夺了那个人的紧迫感以及志向，但是什么都没发生。
然后每天就有像你们的儿子或者女儿一样既聪明又有趣的二十几岁的人跑到我的办公室跟我说“我知道我的男朋友对我一点好处都没有，但这段感情不算数。我只是在消耗时间。”或者是“大家都说只要我在30岁之前开始我的职业就没问题。”这一类的话。
但后来他们就开始讲：“我的二十岁快结束了，但我没什么可以展现的。
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 the n 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.
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?"
I want to change what twentysomethings are doing and thinking.
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 我毕业那天最好写写自己的简历。”
之后他们开始讲：“二十几岁时的约会就像玩抢座位游戏。大家跑来跑去，乐在其中，但到30岁左右音乐就停掉了，大家一个接一个开始坐下。我不想成为唯一一个站着的人，因此有时候我觉得我和我丈夫结婚的原因就是因为在我30岁时他是距我最近的‘椅子’。”
这里的二十几岁的人在哪儿？别做这种事。
好吧，刚才那听起来可能有一点轻浮，但是别搞错，在这里筹码非常高。当很多事情被推到三十几岁再做时，在你的三十岁这个阶段就有在极短的时间内开始一个职业，挑选一个城市，到一个伴侣并且生几个孩子的巨大压力。这些事情中有很多是不兼容的，而且就如研究开始表明，在三十几岁这个阶段同时完成这么多事的压力以及难度实在是太大了。
上个千年之后的中年危机不在于能否买一辆红的敞篷车。是在于发现自己的职业不是自己想要的。是在于发现你无法生你想要的孩子，或者无法给自己的孩子一个同胞。有太多太多的三十几岁的人和四十几岁的人先看看自己，然后看看坐在房间另一边的我，然后讨论他们的二十几岁这个时间段。“我当时在做什么？我当时在想什么？”
我想改变二十几岁的人的所做与所思。
我来讲一个关于如何这么做的故事。这是一个关于一位叫Emma的女性的故事。25岁时，Emma来到我的办公室因为她，用她的话来讲，正在经历一个身份危机。她说她认为她想从事艺术或者娱乐，但她还没决定，所以前几年她花在做服务员上了。因为比较便宜，她和她那展现脾气比志向更频繁的男朋友住在一起。而无论她的二十几岁有多么困难，她以前的生
can't pick your family, but you can pick your friends."
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?"
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.
So over the next weeks and months, I told Emma three things that every twentysomething, male or fe
male, deserves to hear.
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. 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.
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 活更困难。她在会面时经常哭，但会说“你无法选择你的家庭，但是你能选择你的朋友。”然后平定下来。
有一天，Emma走进来，把头放在膝盖上，然后哭了近一个小时。她刚买了一个薄，然后她花了一个上午填她的联系人，但是她只能呆呆的看着“在紧急情况下，请拨打..." 这一串字后面的空白。她近歇斯底里的看着我并说：“如果我出车祸了谁会照顾我？如果我的癌症了谁会照顾我？”
当时，我花了很大力气才避免说“我会”。但Emma需要的并不是一位非常非常关心她的师。Emma需
要一个更好的生活，而且我知道这是她的机会。自从我在Alex身上下功夫后我学到了很多，所以我不会让Emma 那具有决定作用的十年就这么流逝掉。
所以在接下来的几周和几个月中，我告诉了Emma 三个每个二十几岁的人，不论男女，都应该听到东西。sort out the facts
首先，我告诉Emma忘了她的身份危机然后开始积累身份资本。我所说的“积累身份资本”就是指为你自己增加价值。做一项对你接下来想是什么样子的的投资。我当时不知道Emma的职业的未来，而且没人知道自己的工作的未来，但是我知道这些：身份资本会招来更多的身份资本。这是接受那份跨国职业，那份实习和你想试试的那个起步的时候。我不是在漠视二十几岁的人的探索，但是我在漠视毫无意义的探索，而且那些按道理来讲不能叫探索。那叫拖延时间。我叫Emma试验各种工作而且让它们算数。
其次，我告诉Emma城市部落被高估了。好朋友来搭车至机场很棒，但二十几岁的人若和思维方式相似的同龄人聚在一起，他们所知道的人，他

版权声明：本站内容均来自互联网，仅供演示用，请勿用于商业和其他非法用途。如果侵犯了您的权益请与我们联系QQ:729038198，我们将在24小时内删除。