Right on.
Society/media/Hollywood gives people false expectations of life.
Did mid-life crisis’s exist prior to the last half-century?
They probably didn’t, certainly not before the industrial revolution. That’s about the point when some folks started pushing the message “you’re life could be AWESOME”, which has the secondary message of “if it’s not there’s something wrong with you”. That really seems to be when people started being very confused. For the most part, unless you’re born filthy rich, life is drudgery, and even the filthy rich still have to deal with the basic biological boredom (eat food, eliminate food, get some exercise) they just do it on nicer floors.
Spending 5 minutes to not think about what you don’t have to focus on what you do (hopefully an at least acceptable job, basic home, a couple of loved ones and a bit of leisure time) really does improve ones outlook on life. Friend and I were discussing this a couple of weeks ago, he commented that I was happier now than he could remember, and I said it was because I looked at what life had given me and realized it actually kicked a lot of ass, then we went and picked up my wife and ate some awesome sushi.