奥德赛时期ào dé sài shí qī

The odyssey years

wǒ hái zài ào dé sài shí qī.我还在奥德赛时期。I’m still in my odyssey years.

奥德赛时期 means “the odyssey years”: the unsettled stretch of your twenties and early thirties, when people change jobs and do not yet know what they want.

Took off: 2026
Started in: Xiaohongshu posts
Today: Current

What it means

奥德赛 is the Chinese name of Homer’s Odyssey, in which Odysseus wanders for ten years before he gets home. 时期 means “period”.

People use it about themselves, and to comfort friends: the odyssey years are for trying things.

How people use it

It is current, mostly among graduates and people in their twenties.

琦琦

我又想辞职了
wǒ yòu xiǎng cí zhí le
I want to quit my job again.
这才第三份工作吧？
zhè cái dì sān fèn gōng zuò ba?
Isn’t this only your third job?
对，我还没想好要做什么
duì, wǒ hái méi xiǎng hǎo yào zuò shén me
Yeah. I still haven’t figured out what I want to do.
没事，你还在奥德赛时期嘛，多试试
méi shì, nǐ hái zài ào dé sài shí qī ma, duō shì shi
It’s fine, you’re still in your odyssey years. Try things out.

More examples

毕业三年换了四份工作，我还在奥德赛时期。
bì yè sān nián huàn le sì fèn gōng zuò, wǒ hái zài ào dé sài shí qī.
Four jobs in three years since graduation. I’m still in my odyssey years.
别着急，奥德赛时期就是用来试错的。
bié zháo jí, ào dé sài shí qī jiù shì yòng lái shì cuò de.
Don’t worry. The odyssey years are for trial and error.

Where it came from

The American writer David Brooks made the idea popular in a 2007 New York Times column about the years between adolescence and settled adult life.

In China it spread in the spring of 2026. The World of Chinese traces it to a post by an influencer about life after graduation. In March 2026, 36Kr described young people on Xiaohongshu, Bilibili and Weibo posting that they, too, were in their odyssey years.

Not everyone liked the name. A translator of Homer told The Paper that Odysseus was never lost, and that the term fits his son Telemachus better.

The original. There is no single image. Posts on Xiaohongshu tell stories of job changes after graduation with the line “I’m in my odyssey years too”. 36Kr wrote about the trend in March 2026. 36Kr (in Chinese)