I was on the job — in large part because I had an e-mail address and had made the Devil’s bargain with the wired world. As I listened for the sound of the modem connecting in Alice
Springs, I felt in the pit of my stomach that I had lost control over some valuable part of my life. Your employer will refrain from calling you at 11:30 at night, but not from sending an inquiring, hectoring, must-be-promptly-answered-as-soon-as-you-log-on e-mail. E-mail
doesn’t just collapse distance, it demolishes all boundaries. And that can be, depending on the moment, either a blessing or a curse. 我能够在工作，很大程度上是因为我有电子邮件地址，而且同这个紧密联系的世界进行了魔鬼式的交换。当我听到与爱丽丝泉紧密相连的调制解调器的声音时，我内心知道我失去了我生活中一些重要部分的控制。你的老板可以不在晚上11点半打电话给你，但是仍然可以在这个时间给你发一封问询性质的，带有威胁性质的，你一登录就必须回复的邮件。电子邮件不单单让距离化为乌有，它也摧毁所有界限。在不同的时间，它可以是福，也可以是祸。
unit7
The Trying Twenties 经受考验的20来岁
Gail Sheehy
The Trying Twenties confronts us with the question of how to take hold in the adult world.Incandescent with our energies, having outgrown the family and the formlessness of our transiting years, we are impatient to pour ourselves into the exactly right form — our own way of living in the world. Or while looking for it, we want to tryout some provisional form. For now we are not only trying to prove ourselves competent in the larger society but intensely aware of being on trial.
接受考验的20来岁使我们面临的问题是应如何在成人世界里立足。这时的我们精力最为充沛，已不再需要家庭的呵护，也已度过了转型期的稚嫩，正急于寻求一种最适合自己的生活——在这个世界上属于我们自己的生活方式。或者说，在寻求生活模式之际，我们想尝试一下某种过渡性的方式，因为此刻我们不仅在努力证实自己在较大社会环境中的能力，而且还强烈地意识到正在接受考验。
Graduate student is a safe and familiar form for those who can afford it. Working toward a degree is something young people already know how to do. It postpones having to prove oneself in the bigger, bullying arena. Very few Americans had such a privilege before World War II; they reached the jumping-off point by the tender age of 16 or 18 or 20 and had to make their move ready or not. But today, a quarter of a century is often spent before an individual is expected or expects himself to fix his life’s course. Or more. Given the permissiveness to experiment, the prolonged schooling available, and the moratoria allowed, it is not unusual for an adventurer to be nearly 30 before firmly setting a course. 对那些经济上能承受的人来说，读研究生是一种既稳妥又熟悉的方式。攻读学位已是年轻人所熟谙的生活。它使得我们不必过早地投身于令人生畏的社会大竞技场上去证实自己的能力。在二战前，很少美国人有这种深造的荣幸；在16、18或20这样尚未成熟的年纪他们就到达了人生的出发点，并且不论他们是否已作好准备，就必须采取行动。但今天，常常是在四分之一世纪的时间过去之后，一个人才被指望或自我期盼去选定自己的人生道路。或者所需时间更长。对一个冒险者而言，既然容许他去试验人生，延长求学的时间，或是暂且搁置一下学业，那么临近30岁才确定人生道路也毫不为奇了。
Today, the seven-year spread of this stage seems commonly to be from the ages of 22 to 28.
今天，这一跨越七年的求学阶段似乎都介于22岁至28岁。
The tasks of this period are as enormous as they are ED exhilarating, To shape a dream, that vision of one’s own possibilities in the world that will generate energy, aliveness, and hope. To prepare for a lifework. To find a mentor if possible. And to form the capacity for intimacy without losing in the process whatever constancy of self we have thus far assembled. The first test structure must be erected around the life we choose to try.
这一时期的任务令人振奋，同样也艰巨繁重：使梦想成形，即在这个激发能量、活力和希望的世界中发现自身的潜在价值。为毕生将从事的工作作些准备。可能的话，寻求一位良师益友。并且培养与人亲近的能力，在此过程中又不致丢失迄今为止所形成的真实的自我。人生的第一个考验必须围绕着我们选择尝试的生活而展开。
One young man with vague aspirations of having his own creative enterprise, for instance, wasn’t sure if his forte would be photography or cabinetmaking or architecture. There was no sponsor in sight; his parents worked for the telephone company. So he took a job with Ma Bell. He married and together with his wife decided to postpone children indefinitely. Once the structure was set, he could throw all his free-time energies into experimenting within it. Every weekend would find him behind a camera or building bookcases for friends, vigorously testing the various creative streaks that might lead him to a satisfying lifework. 一个年轻人，对于如何展开自己富有创意的事业，志向未定，他拿不定主意到底他最擅长的是摄影、木工还是建筑。眼前他找不到赞助人；他的父母都在电话公司工作。所以他最后在贝尔公司那儿找了份工作。接着他结了婚，并与妻子一起决定无限期地延迟生孩子。一旦选择了这样的生活，他就能将所有业余时间的精力投入各种试验中。每个周末，他要么在忙着拍照，要么在为朋友做书橱，精力充沛地试验着各种创造性，这些创造性或许能引导他找到一种富有满足感的终身事业。
Singlehood can be a life structure of the twenties, too. The daughter of an ego-boosting father, taught to try anything she wished so long as she didn’t bail out before reaching the top, decided to become a traveling publicist. That meant being free to move from city to city as better jobs opened up. The structure that best served her purpose was to remain unattached. She shared apartments and lived in women’s hotels, having a wonderful time, until at 27 she landed the executive job of her dreams. 单身同样也能成为二十几岁年轻人的一种生活方式。有一位女儿，她的父亲是一个善于鼓励的人，他教育女儿去尝试她所希望做的一切，只要她不达到最高的目标决不罢休，这女孩最终决定成为一名旅行广告员。这意味着只要有更好的工作机会，她就能在城市之间自由地迁移。最符合她目标的生活方式便是单身无牵挂。她与别人合住公寓，或住女子旅馆，日子过得十分快乐，直到27岁时她获得了梦寐以求的主管的职位。
“I had no feeling of rootlessness because each time I moved, the next job offered a higher status or salary. And in every city I traveled, I would look up old friends from college and meet them for dinner. That gave me a stabilizing influence. ”
“我一点儿也没有漂泊不定的感觉，因为我每次搬迁，下一份工作都会带给我更高的职位或薪水。并且在每个我所游历的城市，我都会去探望一下大学时代的老朋友，并与他们共进晚餐。这对我来说就起到了一种安定的作用。”
At 30 — Shazam! The same woman was suddenly married and pregnant with twins. Surrounded by a totally new and unforeseen life structure, she was pleasantly baffled to find herself content. “I guess I was ready for a family without knowing it.”
到了30岁——变！这位女士突然结了婚并怀上了一对双胞胎。一下子被一种全新而未曾预料的生活所包围，她既困惑又高兴，发现自己对此十分满足。“我猜想自己在不自觉中已作好成家的准备了。”
The Trying Twenties is one of the longer and more stable periods, stable, that is, in comparison with the rockier passages that lead to and exit from it. Although each nail driven into our first external life structure is tentative, a tryout, once we have made our commitments we are convinced they are the right ones. The momentum of exploring within the structure generally carries us through the twenties without a major disruption of it.
接受考验的20岁是人生中一段较为漫长且更为稳定的一个阶段，说它稳定，则是与它之前和之后更为不稳定的人生阶段相比较而言的。虽然我们在外部世界初次寻求生活方式所进行的每一个实践都是不确定的、试探性的，然而一旦我们作出承诺，我们便会坚信自己作出了正确的选择。而探索这种生活方式的动力通常会推动我们走过20岁的人生阶段，并不会瓦解而导致大的变化。
One of the terrifying aspects of the twenties is the conviction that the choices we make are irrevocable. If we choose a graduate school or join a firm, get married or don’t marry, move to the suburbs or forego travel abroad, decide against children or against a career, we fear in our marrow that we might have to live with that choice forever. It is largely a false fear. Change is not only possible; some alteration of our original choices is probably inevitable. But since in our twenties we’re new at making major life choices, we cannot imagine that possibilities for a better integration will occur to us later on, when some inner growth has taken place.