TED演讲:20岁光阴不再来(6)（打印版）

Well one day, Emma comes in and she hangs her head in her lap, and she sobbed for most of the hour.

有一天，Emma走进来，把头放在膝盖上，然后哭了近一个小时。

She'd just bought a new address book, and she'd spent the morning filling in her many contacts,

她刚买了一个新的地址薄，然后她花了一个上午填她的联系人，

but then she'd been left staring at that empty blank that comes after the words "In case of emergency, please call ..."

但是她只能呆呆的看着“在紧急情况下，请拨打...”这一串字后面的空白。

She was nearly hysterical when she looked at me and said,

她近歇斯底里的看着我并说：

"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?"

“如果我出车祸了谁会照顾我？如果我的癌症了谁会照顾我？”

Now in that moment, it took everything I had not to say, "I will."

当时，我花了很大力气才避免说“我会”。

But what Emma needed wasn't some therapist who really, really cared.

但Emma需要的并不是一位非常非常关心她的治疗师。

Emma needed a better life, and I knew this was her chance.

Emma需要一个更好的生活，而且我知道这是她的机会。

I had learned too much since I first worked with Alex to just sit there while Emma's defining decade went parading by.

自从我在Alex身上下功夫后我学到了很多，所以我不会让Emma那具有决定作用的十年就这么流逝掉。

So over the next weeks and months, I told Emma three things that every twentysomething, male or female, deserves to hear.

所以在接下来的几周和几个月中，我告诉了Emma三个每个二十几岁的人，不论男女，都应该听到东西。

First, I told Emma to forget about having an identity crisis and get some identity capital.

首先，我告诉Emma忘了她的身份危机然后开始积累身份资本。

By "get identity capital," I mean do something that adds value to who you are.

我所说的“积累身份资本”就是指为你自己增加价值。

Do something that's an investment in who you might want to be next.

做一项对你接下来想是什么样子的的投资。

I didn't know the future of Emma's career, and no one knows the future of work, but I do know this:

我当时不知道Emma的职业的未来，而且没人知道自己的工作的未来，但是我知道这些：

Identity capital begets identity capital.

身份资本会招来更多的身份资本。

So now is the time for that cross-country job, that internship, that startup you want to try.

这是接受那份跨国职业，那份实习和你想试试的那个起步的时候。

I'm not discounting twentysomething exploration here,

我不是在漠视二十几岁的人的探索，

but I am discounting exploration that's not supposed to count, which, by the way, is not exploration.

但是我在漠视毫无意义的探索，而且那些按道理来讲不能叫探索。

That's procrastination. I told Emma to explore work and make it count.

那叫拖延时间。我叫Emma试验各种工作而且让它们算数。