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.
当很多事都被挤到你30多岁的时候,就会有巨大压力,在很短的时间内快速启动一项事业,挑一个城市,找到伴侣,生两三个孩子。这些事大多是不能同时完成的,正如研究表明,在30岁的时候要想工作生活一步到位,难度很高,压力很大。

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.
千禧年后的中年危机并不是一辆红色跑车。而是意识到你不能拥有你想拥有的事业,意识到你不能拥有你想要的孩子,或者给你的孩子添个兄弟姐妹。

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.
太多30多岁40多岁的人看看他们自己,看看我,坐在屋子里谈论自己的20多岁,“我当时都干么了?我当时都想啥了?”我想改变现在20多岁人的所思所为。

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.
这里我想讲个故事说明问题。这个故事是关于名叫Emma一个女人。她25岁的时候走入我的办公室,因为用她自己的话说,她有自我认识危机。她说她也许想从事关于艺术或者娱乐的工作,但是她还没决定。所以取而代之的是她花了过去几年的时间当服务员。

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."
为了减少开销,她和她的男朋友同居,一个脾气暴躁而无志向的人。正如她悲惨的20多岁,她早年的生活更加悲惨。她经常在谈话过程中哭泣,努力镇定下来后说“你没办法选择你的家庭,但是你可以选择你的朋友。”

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 ... "
有一天,Emma走进来,她双手抱头于膝盖,然后抽泣了几乎一个小时。她刚买了一个新的通讯录本子,然后花了一整个早上的时间填写她的联系人信息。当她填到“万一发生紧急情况,请联系...”的时候,她没有任何人可填。

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."
她几乎崩溃地看着我并说,“如果我被车撞了,谁会在那里?假如我得癌症了,谁会在那里?” 在那种情况下,我花了好大力气才忍住说“我会。”

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.
Emma所需要的并不是理疗师所真正关心的。她需要一个更好的生活,我知道这是她的机会。自Alex开始,我从这份工作上学到了很多,不能只是坐在那里看着Emma十年黄金定型期白白消逝。

So over the next weeks and months, I told Emma three things that every twentysomething, male or female, deserves to hear.
所以接下去的几个星期几个月,我告诉Emma三件事,所有20多岁的男生女生都值得听一听。