20岁光阴不再来

　　When I was in my 20s,I saw my very first psychotherapy(心理诊疗) client.I was a Ph.D. student in clinical psychology(临床心理学) at Berkeley.She was a 26-year-old woman named Alex.Now Alex walked into her first session

　　wearing jeans and a big slouchy(宽松的) 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(纵火犯) 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,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.But before

　　long,my supervisor(导师) pushed me to push Alex about her love life.I pushed back.I said,"Sure,she's dating down,"(她的对象很差劲) she's sleeping with a knucklehead(傻瓜),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.(结婚之前)"That's what psychologists call an "Aha!"moment(顿悟时刻).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.(没错，现在人们结婚的年龄比以前大一些，但这并没有使Alex的20岁成为发展的搁浅期。)That made Alex's 20s a developmental sweet spot,and we were sitting there

　　blowing(挥霍) it.That was when I realized that this sort of benign neglect(善意的忽视)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

　　twentysometings 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.(都要先经历过他们的20岁才能进入成年)If you work with twentysomthings,you love a twentysomething,you're losing sleep over twentysomethings,I want to see----Okay.Awesome,twentysometings

　　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.We know that the first 10 years of a career has an exponential impact on how much money

　　you're going to earn.We konw 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(高峰) in your 20s as it rewires(开启…模式) 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(生育能力高峰) 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 the critical period of adult development.But this isn't what twentysomethings are hearing.(但是很少有人告诉20多岁的人这些

　　话。)Newspapers talk about the changing timetable of adulthood.Researchers call the 20s an ectended adolescence(青春的延长期).Journalists coin silly nicknames for twentysomethings like "twixters"(夹在中间者) and "kidults"（成年孩子）.As a culture,we have trivialized(习惯忽视) what is actually the defining decade of adulthood.Leonard Bernstein said that to achieve great things,you need a plan and not quit enough time.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 star

　　ted on a career by the time I'm 30,I'll be fine."But then is 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(抢椅子).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 to 30."Do not do that.Okay,now that sounds a little flip,but make no mistake,the

　　stakes(风险) 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(结婚),and have two or three kids in a much shorter period of time.Many of those things are incompatible(互不相容的),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(千禧年后的'中年危机) isn't by 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 give your child a sibling(姊妹).Too many thirtysomethings and fortysomethings look at themselves,and at me,sitting across the room and say about their 20s,"What was I doingWhat was I thinking"I want to change what twentysomethings are doing and