It seems everywhere I turn these days, I see midlifers complaining about their lives. Case in point, the new movie “Brad’s Status.” In this film Ben Stiller stars as 47-year-old Brad. He lies in bed at night comparing his boring suburban life to the lives of his successful college friends. While he’s struggling to run a small non-profit, they’re jetting around the world, writing books, and spending early retirement in Hawaii. Everyone is living the good life, at least in Brad’s imagination.

If this doesn’t define modern midlife crisis, I don’t know what does! Yep, that was me back in 2004, at age 49, feeling utterly stuck in loserville. The point is I was not permanently stuck there. Since I was single, unemployed and on severance, I spent a few months studying my situation, while always focusing on this:

If you could have, do or be anything right now, what would it be?  

That is how I ended up crowning myself the “Midlife Crisis Queen.” First I grieved how little I had to show for my life, then I began changing EVERYTHING. After deciding my top priority was finding love for once in this lifetime, he turned up at my door. Here’s how:  How To Believe in Love Again. 

Then I changed careers so I could spread the word about how midlife works. I figured after 25 years as an academic librarian, I could do this. The result:

Find Your Reason To Be Here: The Search For Meaning in Midlife

It is strange to me how few midlife sufferers are looking for workable solutions. Because, as far as I’m concerned, there are real solutions just waiting for you to pursue. The research is there. You are not the first person to experience this in your 40s or 50s. It happened to Carl Jung and Erik Erikson, and you can be sure they didn’t sit around on their hands accepting it…

Are you really so special or lazy that you won’t even try to help yourself feel better? Previous generations also felt this way. Some gave up, others learned new ways to cope. At this point I can only assume some of you prefer suffering to pursuing enlightenment.