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.
我们知道人在20多岁的时候大脑停止第二次也是最后一次重组，以适应成年世界的快速发育阶段。这就意味着不管你想怎样改变自己，现在就是时间改变了。我们知道在20多岁的时候，性格的改变多于生命中任何时期。我们也知道女性的最佳生育时期在28岁的时候达到顶峰，35岁之后生育变得困难。

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.
所以你的20多岁正是了解你自身和选择的时期。当我们想到孩童的成长时，我们都知道1-5岁是大脑学习语言和感知的重要时期。这个时期，日常的普通生活都会对你的未来道路影响巨大。

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.
但是我们却很少听到成年发展期，而我们的20多岁正是成年发展期的关键。但是20多岁的人却听不到这些，报纸讨论的只是成年年龄界线的变更。

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.
研究者称20多岁是延长的青春期。记者就引用傻傻的外号称呼20多岁的人，比如“twixters” (twenty-mixters)和“kidults”(kid-adults)。 这是真的。作为一种文化，我们的忽视的正是对成年起到决定性作用的十年（从20岁到30岁）。

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.
雷昂纳德·伯恩斯坦说过：要想取得成就，你需要一个计划和紧迫的时间。这是大实话啊！所以当你拍着一个20多岁的人的脑袋，跟他说，“你有额外的10年去开始你的生活”，你觉得这改变了什么？什么都没改变。你只是夺走了那个人的紧迫感和雄心壮志，绝对没有改变什么。

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."
然后每天，那些聪明有趣的20多岁的人就像你们和你们的儿子女儿一样，走入我的办公室开始说：“我知道我的男朋友对我不够好，但是我们的关系不算数。我只是在消磨时光而已。”或者说“每个人都告诉我只要能在30岁的时候开始我的事业，这就足够了。”

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 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.
但是实际听上去却是：“我马上就要三十了，却根本就没有东西展示。我只是在大学毕业时有过一份最漂亮的简历。” 或是这样：“我20多岁时的约会就像找凳子。每个人都绕着凳子跑，随便玩一玩，但是快30的时候就像音乐停止了，所有人开始坐下。

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.
我不想成为那唯一站着的人，所以有时候我会想我和我丈夫之所以会结婚，是因为在我30岁的时候，他是当时离我最近的那张凳子。在场的20多岁的人呐，千万不要这样做。这个做法听起来有点轻率，但是不要犯错，因为风险很高。