20多歲人生很迷茫？10大信號你遇到了青年危機
1. You’ve been daydreaming about doing something crazy.
一直在做不切實際的白日夢。
You don’t know what you want, and you’re either stuck in a job you hate or still figuring out what you want to do with your life. Should you move to Europe? Join the Peace Corps? The military? Go to grad school? Sell your belongings and take up residence in an ashram? Suddenly, all of these are sounding better than treading water where you are.
你還不知道自己想要什麼，要麼陷在一份討厭的工作上，要麼還在彷徨這輩子該幹什麼。是移居歐洲嗎？抑或加入和平部隊？還是參軍、讀研、變賣家當去隱居？反正，不管是什麼都比擱淺在這裏好。
2. …but you feel paralyzed by indecision.
猶豫不決、優柔寡斷。
Though you might have freedom to go or do anything, you’d almost prefer the problems of a quarter-Life crisis — i.e., too much predictability or instability — to the weird flux of your twenties. You’re scared that if you pick something, it won’t bring you that fulfillment you’re looking for — and then you’ll be right back where you started.
雖然你有自由去做任何事，但卻被各種青年危機問題困擾——二十幾歲這段躁動歲月，充斥太多預料和不安。你害怕一旦動真格，一切變得事與願違，然後你又得重新開始。
3. You feel increasingly nostalgic for your high school and college days.
越來越懷念高中和大學時光。
Remember when life was simple? You feel stuck between your childhood and your adulthood, and you long for a time when your hardest decision was what to wear to prom. (At least, that’s the way your brain is filtering your teen years now, thanks to those ever-rosy nostalgia glasses.)
還記得那段單純時光嗎？童年不再、社會未入的那段日子，整天只爲舞會穿什麼而煩惱。（至少，因爲念舊，現在你心裏的青春歲月就是如此。）
4. The idea of making a budget terrifies you.
對經濟預算避之不及。
Not thinking about how much you’re spending on Chipotle and gin and tonics might not be smart, but avoiding your money issues definitely eases the existential pain a bit. (At least until your Visa bill arrives in your inbox.)
雖然不去想自己爲那些美味佳餚等等到底買了多少單有些說不過去，但對理財問題避而不談確實能暫時忘卻煩惱（直到某天收到信用卡賬單吧）。
5. You’re starting to think of your dating life differently.
開始對戀愛生活另有想法。
Maybe you’re not quite ready to take ALL hookups off the table, but if you’re single, you might be feeling increasingly unfulfilled by dates or encounters that lead to nothing. If you’re in a relationship, you might be questioning if you really want to be with this person long-term — and maybe even debating whether it’s too late to find someone else.
儘管還不至於完全放棄約會，但單身的你卻開始對只戀愛無結果的關係厭倦了；要是你正在談戀愛，可能也在考慮自己是不是想跟對方一直走下去，甚至有所糾結：現在換人會不會太遲了呢？6. You have a sudden, intense fear of failure.
突然非常害怕失敗。
You’re already a little far from college, where one can take new classes, switch majors, and try new things with relative impunity. Now you’re panicked that failing at one thing means you’ll continue failing and fuck up your life in some irretrievable way.
你已經畢業好幾年，再也沒有機會上新課、調專業或不付代價嘗試新鮮事物了。現在，你害怕一步邁錯，接下來會步步出錯，人生就這麼玩完了。
7. You’re bored with your friends
對朋友感到厭倦。
Going out clubbing seems less and less appealing, and you feel increasingly alienated from your college buddies and the activities you used to do back in school. You no longer feel shame about spending a night in by yourself; in fact, you might even start to prefer it.
去俱樂部越來越沒意思，跟大學好友漸漸疏遠，那些以前讀書時喜歡參加的活動也懶得去。你不再害怕一個人打發晚上時光，甚至還很享受。
8. You constantly compare yourself to your friends who are your age…
不斷拿自己跟同齡朋友作比較。
Everyone’s married already! AHHHH
啊！！！！！全都結婚了！
9. …or your parents when THEY were your age.
或想到了父母在你這個年紀時……
They had kids (you) already! They had a house! WTF.
他們已經有小孩了！他們還有自己的房子！！
10. You feel like your twenties aren’t turning out how you expected they would.
覺得自己的二十幾歲完全不是期望的樣子。
This might be the biggest sign of all that you’re starting to contemplate your quarter-life milestone: You can’t stop thinking about how this isn’t exactly where you pictured you’d be at 23, 25, or 30. Maybe you don’t have a significant other. Maybe you’re not exactly in your dream job. Sure, you were never a “white-picket fence” person, but you thought you’d at least have SOME of your shit together by now. Instead, you have bookmarked on your browser and a halfhearted OkCupid habit.
這一點可能最重要：你開始認真思考已經過去的1/4人生——你總忍不住問自己，爲什麼23、25或30歲根本就不是期待的樣子？爲什麼還是單身、做着不情願的工作？你還沒掙到自己的房子，但你本以爲這個年紀自己應該有這點能力的；現實中，你依然宅着叫外賣，另一半也還杳無蹤影……Sooo… now what? If you feel like you’re in the throes of your own quarter-life crisis, here are a few practical tips drawn from Alexandra Robbins’ book, Conquering Your Quarterlife Crisis: Advice from Twentysomethings Who Have Been There and Survived:
那……該怎麼辦？如果你感覺自己正面臨青年危機，請看下面一些建議（摘自亞歷山德拉-羅賓斯的《戰勝青年危機：給二十幾歲人的建議》）：
Remember that life isn't a race
請記住：生活不是一場賽跑。
Few of the decisions you make at 26 will make or break your entire life. Try not to feel pigeonholed into keeping a career you hate or a relationship that’s gone stale because you’re “already on this path” and you feel like breaking up or quitting will “set you behind” on the track. Life’s too short to toil away at something that isn’t making you happy in the long term; decide what’s worth giving up.
26歲做的決定很少會毀掉你整個人生。不要因爲現在“木已成舟”或害怕放棄一切後落後他人，就吊死在不喜歡的工作上或慘淡維持乏味關係。人生短暫，何必苦苦浪費大把時光在不開心的事情上，放棄那些該放棄的吧。
Muster up the courage to redefine yourself.
振作起來，重新認識自己。
Adulthood means finding your identity. In high school and college, your identity is mostly drawn up for you like a paint by number: your grades, your major, your career plans, your extracurricular activities. But post-college, your identity is an empty moleskine, and your job is to ascertain who you are and to fucking fill that book up. You might end up with scribbled-out pages and plots that go woefully unresolved, but as Robbins says: “At some point in your life, you are going to have to confront yourself. You might as well do it now.”
成年意味着界定自己的身份。高中和大學時代，你的身份都是被界定的，像一串形容與編號：你的年級、專業、就業規劃、課外活動等等。但畢業後你的身份卻是空白的，需要自己加以界定。或許你終其一生都潦倒茫然，根本不知道自己是誰。但正如羅賓斯所言：“你總得在人生某個時刻坦誠面對自己，那不如現在就開始吧。”
Loosen your expectations, and find comfort in the fact that you’re not alone.
降低要求，尋找同類。
Even your friends who slipped right from college into seemed wedded bliss and cushy jobs are feeling the same pangs of uneasiness that you might be feeling. Surround yourself with people who make you feel safe and to whom you feel you can open up in a truly cathartic way. Personally, finding people I can share my struggles with has helped me immensely in my twenties; there’s absolutely nothing more valuable than a friend to whom you can say, “Hey, my life is shitty right now,” and hear back, “Me too. Let’s talk about it.”
就算朋友一畢業就步入婚姻殿堂、得到輕鬆工作，也不見得比你快樂。多跟給你安全感、讓你恰當釋懷的人交往。其實，我二十幾歲時就是這麼做的，再沒什麼能比跟朋友侃侃生活困難更暢快的了。
It’s also the right time to finally let go of your expectations of what adulthood should be. It doesn’t matter if your parents married at 22 or if your friend is running a successful start-up; putting too much stress on preconceived ideas of what adulthood will be is a surefire way to tank all of your optimism and hopes. Life is too fucking short to daydream it away wishing you had someone else’s.
同時，也要降低因爲成年而對自己的苛求。父母22歲結婚或朋友創業成功都跟你沒關係；事先給自己太多壓力、設定成年要如何如何，反倒一下子澆滅你的樂觀和希望。人生短暫，萬不可白日夢似的過着他人的生活。
