25二十岁的人生不能等到三十才开始

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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 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 twenty-something 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 30s the new 20 Alex would
say and as far as I could tell she was
right work happened later marriage
happened later kids happen later
even death happen later 20-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 30s 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 sweetspot 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 her Alex
and her love life but
for the careers and the families and the
futures of 20-somethings everywhere
there are 50 million 20-somethings in
the United States right now we're
talking about 15 percent of the
population or a hundred 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
20-somethings here okay yes awesome
if you work with 20s on things you love
at 20-something you're losing sleep over
20-somethings I want to see okay awesome
20-somethings really matter so I
specialize in 20-somethings because I
believe that every single one of those
50 million 20-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 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 8 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 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 we know that personality changes more
during your 20s than at any other time
in life and we know that female
fertility peaks at
twenty-eight and things get tricky after
age 35 so your 20s of 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
20-somethings are hearing newspapers
talk about the changing timetable of
adulthood researchers call the 20s and
extended adolescence journalists coined
silly nicknames for twenty somethings
like twisters and cults 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
pad a twenty-something 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 20's 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 chair
as 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'm married my
husband because he was the closest chair
to me at 30 where the 20-somethings 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-something 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 30-somethings
in 40-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 20-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 mini
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 twenty-something 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 in this 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 twenty-something 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
20-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 ties our friends of
friends of friends so yes half of
20-somethings are uh nor underemployed
but half aren't and weak ties or 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
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 twenty-something
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 thirty 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 is 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 for 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 roommates cousin who worked at an
art museum in another state that week Ty
helped her get a job there that job
offer gave her the reason to leave that
living boyfriend 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 lengths don't
seem big enough now Emma's story made
that sound easy but that's what I love
about working with 20-somethings they
are so easy to help 20-somethings are
like airplanes just leaving LAX bound
for somewhere West right after takeoff a
slight change in course is the
difference between landing and 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 twenty-something 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 20-somethings
like Emma every single day 30 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