Sunny, that is a great link--thank you so much.

Yalom addresses separately in his book "Love's Executioner" the subjects of Death (several chapters), Life Meaning, Freedom. I particularly like this from the chapter on Life Meaning:

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
from Love's Executioner:
We humans appear to be meaning-seeking creatures who have had the misfortune of being thrown into a world devoid of intrinsic meaning. One of our major tasks is to invent a meaning sturdy enough to support a life and to perform the tricky maneuvering of denying our personal authorship of this meaning. Thus we conclude that it was "out there" waiting for us. Our ongoing search for substantial meaning systems often throws us into crises of meaning.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

When my son became an adult and moved away, I was left with such a crisis. Single, the meaning in my life was no longer there. I suspect it is this way for many mid-life crises. I also think this can crash head-on with life stages (Erickson) and make it even more challenging to work through.