Survival4Chicks

There are many reasons why our government’s insistence on pumping out spin, half-truths, and bold-faced lies about the state of the U.S. economy is a serious mistake. In my view, however, one of the biggest problems with this approach is that it encourages people, especially those who are not so well versed in economic realities, to hang on in hope for a return to the way things once were, instead of rethinking their lives and changing with the times.

While a fresh take on life doesn’t necessarily guarantee that circumstances will turn out for the better, odds are that it will be a whole lot more productive than wasting time, money, and energy in anticipation of a future that what will never be. In “Baby Boomers Reinvent Themselves in a Recession” the Palm Beach Post tells the story of a woman who got slammed by fallout from the financial crisis, saw the writing on the wall, and decided to do something about it.

Now what?

It’s the question a lot of people in mid-life are asking as the recession swept away their jobs and new ones remain as scarce as a June cold front.

Or perhaps divorce, an accident or even a death prompts us to take a second look at the first half of our lives and say, “Something’s gotta change.”

Baby Boomers in particular, who have continually reinvented themselves since they traded their Mickey Mouse Club ears for Beatles boots, are embarking on second and third careers in record numbers. New business start-ups hit all-time highs in 2009, as “necessity entrepreneurs” created the jobs they couldn’t find, according to the Kauffman Foundation, which tracks entrepreneurship.

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