Name: 中年危機的另一個選擇？| Chip Conley | TED (An Alternative to the “Midlife Crisis” | Chip Conley | TED)
Uploaded: 2026-01-25T23:03:10.000Z
Duration: 3 min 32 s

What first pops into your mind when you hear the word midlife crisis?

聽到「中年危機」時，你腦中第一個浮現的是什麼？

Yes, the dreaded midlife crisis is the butt of all kinds of jokes, but

沒錯，令人聞之色變的中年危機，雖然常被拿來開玩笑，但

After I lost a few friends to midlife suicide, I decided to create an alternative narrative to the awful way we tend to think of our 40s, 50s, and

在我幾位朋友因中年危機而自殺後，我決定要為我們看待 40、50、

60 歲這段人生階段的糟糕方式，創造一個另類說法。

And I'm going to share that with you over the next three minutes.

在接下來的三分鐘，我將與大家分享。

Midlife is one of three life stages that sprouted in the 20th century.

中年是 20 世紀才出現的三個人生階段之一。

Adolescence didn't even exist until 1904, when society realized that just because you hit puberty didn't mean you were an adult.

青春期在 1904 年前根本不存在，當時社會才意識到，即使你進入青春期，也不代表你就是成人了。

Retirement was popularized nearly a century ago with pensions and Social Security, and

近百年前，隨著終身俸和社會安全制度的出現，退休生活開始普及，

then 25 years later with the advent of AARP.

接著在 25 年後，AARP 也應運而生。

And retirement communities, those two life stages got a whole lot of love.

還有退休社區，這兩個人生階段都受到了很多關注。

But there's a life stage in the middle that didn't get much respect.

但中間有一個人生階段卻沒受到太多重視。

Midlife is the natural outgrowth of the three decades of additional longevity we were granted in the 20th century.

中年是我們在 20 世紀獲得的額外壽命三十年自然產生的結果。

But all it got was a bad brand, the midlife crisis, which was coined in 1965.

但它只得到一個糟糕的標籤，就是中年危機，這個詞是在 1965 年創造的。

Yet research on how happiness evolves as we age shows that from about age 22 or 23 all the way to 45 to 50, there is a long, slow decline in life satisfaction.

然而，關於快樂如何隨著年齡增長而演變的研究顯示，從大約 22、23 歲到 45、50 歲，生活滿意度會長期緩慢下降。

It bottoms out around 45 to 50, although your mileage may vary.

大約在 45 到 50 歲時會達到最低點，不過你的情況可能有所不同。

On the other side of that, though, the good news is that from age 50 on, we get happier and happier, called the U curve of happiness.

不過，好消息是，從 50 歲開始，我們會越來越快樂，這就是所謂的快樂U型曲線。

So maybe there's a new framework to think about midlife, one that we learned when we were kids.

所以，或許我們可以換個新框架來思考中年，一個我們小時候就學到的概念。

The magical metamorphosis of the caterpillar to the butterfly.

毛毛蟲變成蝴蝶那神奇的變態過程。

Just as a caterpillar eats incessantly just before it's about to spin its chrysalis, so do we, as young adults, madly consume and produce.

就像毛毛蟲在準備結蛹前會不停地吃，我們年輕時也是瘋狂地吸收和產出。

And then the caterpillar decides to take its midlife break in its chrysalis, which is dark and gooey and solitary.

然後毛毛蟲決定在牠的蛹裡，那個黑暗、黏稠又孤獨的地方，來個中年休息。

But it's also where the transformation happens.

On the other side of that, there's a chrysalis that cracks open and this beautiful winged creature emerges that delights us all.

在那之後，蛹會裂開，一隻美麗的有翅膀的生物出現，讓我們都驚豔。

So, to recap, the caterpillar consumes, the chrysalis transforms, and the butterfly pollinates.

所以，總結一下，毛毛蟲是吃，蛹是轉變，蝴蝶是授粉。

What if we rethought midlife such that it's not a crisis, it's a chrysalis.

如果我們重新思考中年，讓它不是危機，而是蛹。

What if we thought of midlife as the dawning of a new age, an age where much of what we accumulated dissolves just as we're ready to transform, spread our wings and pollinate our wisdom to the world in our 50s and beyond.

如果我們把中年想成是一個新時代的黎明，一個我們累積的許多東西會在我們準備好轉變、展開翅膀並在 50 歲及以後將智慧傳播給世界時消融的時代。

If you look at life like that, it's maybe possible that it's cool to grow old.

如果我們這樣看待人生，或許變老也是一件很酷的事。

Are we ready for pro aging, not anti aging products?

我們準備好擁抱「熟齡」，而不是抗老產品了嗎？

我們能讓「熟齡」變得令人嚮往嗎？

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中年危機的另一個選擇？| Chip Conley | TED (An Alternative to the “Midlife Crisis” | Chip Conley | TED)

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