TED TALK~ 不要等到三十歲才來後悔二十歲没有好好過活，人生是現在就已經開始 【中英字幕】

when I was in my 20s I saw my very first Psychotherapy client I was a PhD 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 slouch 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 20-some 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 30'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

20s somethings 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 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 20s somethings everywhere there are 50 million 20s

somethings in the United States right now we're talking about 15% of the population or 100% 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 20s somethings here yay y'all's awesome um

if you work with 20s somethings you love a 20-some you're losing sleep over 20s somethings I want to see okay awesome 20s somethings really matter

so I specialize in 20ss because I believe that every single one of those 50 million 20 somethings deserves to know what psychologists sociologists

neurologists INF 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% 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 uh 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 rewies 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 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 5 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 20s somethings are hearing newspapers talk about the changing timetable of

adulthood researchers call the 20s an extended adolescence journalists coined silly nicknames for 20s somethings like twickers and

Cults it's true 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 20-some 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 20 somethings 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 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 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 20s something's 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 30-some 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 his 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 30s somethings and 40s

somethings 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 20s somethings 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 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' 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

20-some male or female 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 Emo's career and no one knows the future of work but I do know this IID didn't identity Capital begets identity Capital

so now is the time for that CrossCountry job that internship that startup you want to try I'm not discounting 20-some 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 20s somethings 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 new things come

from what are called our weak tithes our friends of friends of friends so yes half of 20s somethings are un or underemployed 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 neighbors boss is how you get that unposted job it's

not cheating it's the science of how information spreads 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 20-some 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 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 in what you want rather than just making it work or killing time with whoever happens to be

choosing you 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 week Tai helped her get a job there that job offer gave her the reason to leave that living boyfriend now 5 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 now Emma's Story made that sound easy but that's what I love about working

with 20s somethings they are so easy to help 20s somethings 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 so here's an idea we're spreading to every 20-some 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 20s somethings like Emma every single

day 30 is not the new 20 so claim your adulthood get some identity Capital use your we 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