Most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

-- Abraham Lincoln

In these rollercoaster times, social get-togethers have turned into therapy sessions that are equal parts career counseling and spiritual revival. Seems everybody I know is worried about his or her economic future, and that anxiety goes far beyond the expensive stops at the gas pump.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, my friends are overwhelmingly gloomy. An impromptu visit to a neighbor focuses on layoffs. A dinner party becomes a savings tips exchange center. The birthday celebration doubles as a job networking event.

Is it the ever-diminishing balance in our 401(k)s that has made us so bearish? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Middle age? The inescapable stream of bad news about the housing market?

Lately, a dour je ne sais quoi infuses every conversation. Girls night out last week was a perfect example of this disturbing trend. Our usual topic of family life -- children's exploits, husband's silly shenanigans -- was abandoned for a hard-core discussion on job security and skyrocketing supermarket prices.

One friend recounted how the family business was having trouble collecting payments. Another complained her customers had gone AWOL. And I, not to be outdone, detailed the unsettling layoffs in an industry that had cost my newspaper colleagues their jobs. By the time I dragged myself home, doggie bag in tow, I shuddered at the little black cloud hovering over us. I fell asleep searching for the silver lining.

The next day I woke up to a survey that confirmed my suspicions. People my age, those proverbial baby boomers, are definitely bummed out, more so than younger and older adults, and they don't expect their situation to improve any time soon. The new Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey labels us ''The Gloomiest Generation,'' an unnerving title when you think that our parents were called ``The Greatest Generation.''

We boomers give the overall quality of life a lower rating than other age groups in the survey and we worry more about our pay not keeping up with the cost of living. Our collective outlook is even bleaker in other areas. For instance, we believe it's harder to get ahead now than it was 10 years ago -- surely, a depressing, debilitating point of view if passed on to our children. More of us also think it's easier to fall behind.

Perception, however, doesn't coincide with reality. We enjoy the highest incomes of any age group surveyed. We are less likely to have been laid off and less likely to have trouble paying for medical care or housing. In fact, fewer of us said that someone in our household had to go to work in the past year or take on an extra job to make ends meet.

So why the gloom and doom? I suspect that we are overwhelmed by the responsibility of children and older parents, stressed out by the uncertainty of a world speeding faster than our ability to keep up. More important, we have yet to find the satisfaction that comes with just enough -- that aha! moment where gratitude meets acceptance, where expectations fit perfectly within our grasp.

Which leads me to the silver lining I couldn't find last week. Remember that? Well, it occurred to me that I was too busy boo-hooing about hard times to notice the obvious. That nice candlelight dinner with stimulating companionship at a safe neighborhood eatery is a treat most of the world won't enjoy tonight.

How's that for an anxiety antidote?

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