Cranky Boomer men really do need to chill! I came across an article in the Santa Barbara Independent by Dr. Michael O.L. Seabaugh. He's a licensed clinical psychologist in Santa Barbara. It was titled Men of an Uncertain Age and I could swear he was talking about me. Okay, maybe me and a couple of million other Boomers my age (58).

You know that old men's saying "Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em"? Well Dr. Michael wondered what the women who live with those men might say, "Can't live with 'em and can't imagine putting up with this until he's ninety!".

Now, one theory is that we're suffering from Irritable Male Syndrome. Yes, some in the medical profession really believe that men go through a form of "male menopause," generally between the ages of 40 and 55. Okay, so I'm a little late. Or maybe, I've been having it since I was 40 and never realized it. One psychotherapist of 35 years claims to "have seen too many men destroy their own lives and the lives of those they love because they didn't understand the inevitable changes that go on in a man's body, mind, and spirit at mid-life."

According to Jed Diamond in his book, Mid-Life Men: What Families Should Know, more than 25 million men in the U.S. are now going through male menopause and emotional symptoms that include irritability, worry, indecisiveness, and depression. Physical symptoms include fatigue, weight gain, short-term memory loss, and sleep disturbances. And there's plenty of stuff about sex and those dysfunctions we see on television commercials. Sounds like me. I thought this is just the norm for men our age.

Now, I don't dismiss any of this. I have another theory. We male Boomers came of age balancing the stereotypes of men passed on by our fathers and society and the new image demanded by the sixties and seventies and women who didn't take any B.S. Somewhere along the way, we had to or decided on our own that it was both wise and prudent to make a choice. We, along with some help from our female friends (women, girlfriends, wives, and sometimes mothers), evolved into some higher male being where we could feel lust for women, while at the same time, respecting them and championing their equality.

Now add to that volatile mixture (read, confusion) a refusal for many of us men to "act our age". I don't know about you, but while I've heard this for most of my life, I still don't understand what it means. That's mainly because, in my heart, I know that no one has ever been our age before, this particular way, in this time, in our place in history.

My father may have been a member of the Greatest Generation but we are the Baddest Generation. We challenged all the norms, changed history, the rules, the game, hell, we just said "no" to so many things. Don't you remember? We were the petulant spoiled generation that wanted what we wanted when we wanted it.

So what makes you think that just because we're getting older, we're going to simply accept the old rules (no pun intended. okay, maybe just a little). No, we realized some time ago that there are no rules. Most of us really are making this up as we go along.

The generation of my father saw life more clearly. There was school, marriage and many kids, a job for 20, 30, maybe even 40 years and then you retired and either bored yourself to death or were lucky enough to travel the world and live high on the hog. Well, scratch that for us.

I've been married three times, gone through several life changes and had too many jobs to remember, been around the block more times than people have been alive and I'm just 58. Now, I'm looking for my next act, juggling ten prospective projects at once that may or may not result in a paycheck and still trying to maintain a twenty year old marriage and you want to know why I'm a proud member of Cranky Boomer Men ?

As I said earlier, Cranky Boomer Men just need to chill. We know the solutions don't rest alone in a pill that we'll need to take or the trip to the gym we refuse to make and the acceptance that we Cranky Boomer Men don't need to suffer alone or in silence.

We need to stop acting like all this is the end of the world just because it seems like the end of the world. Take a deep breath and remember we're making up the rules as we go along because there are no rules. So, if you can just make a rule that you really are in charge of your life and that you don't have to be a Cranky Boomer Man, then that's the rule.

Okay, it's not that easy. But it can be. I take solace in some wisdom I found in a website called man-o-pause (www.man-o-pause.com) which bills itself as providing midlife men a place to breathe. In one entry, Dennis Gaskill, the creator and owner of BoogieJack.com, a popular webmasters resource site, elaborates on the difference between self-image, self-worth and self esteem. In his seven keys to self-worth, he waxes eloquently (visit http://www.man-o-pause.com/manopause/ for more details):

1) Self-acceptance.

2) Self-responsibility: We must own our thoughts, actions, and emotions and be responsible for them. We cannot blame our parents, family, friends or others; nor can we blame our location, education, environment, childhood, race, gender, or any other external factors for who've we've become, who we are becoming, or what we've done in the past. It's accepting that no one else is responsible for your happiness and no one is here to live up to your expectations for them.

3) Self-justification: It is your right to exist. You are not here to live up to anyone else's expectations. Your life does not belong to another. You exist, and that is the only justification you need to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to tell you who you should be.

4) Self-reflection: Without self-reflection we cannot make personal value judgments about our behavior and character.

5) Sense of Purpose.

6) Personal Integrity.

7) Selflessness.

Nicely put. Read it, absorb it and for one moment, imagine yourself as a Cranky- less Boomer Man.