Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis

by Ada Calhoun

Yet somehow for this generation of women, the belief that girls could do anything morphed into a directive that they must do everything.

One of the goals she encourages women to pursue is what’s known as “radical acceptance”—finding a way to take life as it is, not as you thought it would be. “It’s one of the hardest things,” Chafin says, “to radically accept what’s in front of you.”

“The people I know who are happy realize they can’t care about everything,” says Deal. “You have to decide what you care about. If everything matters to you, you’re going to go nuts.”