Dear Emily,

I should be one lucky person—born to wealthy parents, studied here and abroad, and OK in looks.

I’ve never found real love. I’ve gone out with wealthy, good looking men, had sex with even the ugly ones, and then married a penniless nobody, just to show I was not a snob. It was annulled in five months, after his girlfriend, who arrived from the province with their three children, tried to kill me.

I am pushing 50 and my life is pretty empty. Most of my classmates are married or into their second or third husbands, and I am still single with no hope of having a child.

I have a successful decorating business with my gay brother, but it can run without me. Except for this sibling who loves me to death, I have no one to call a friend, nobody I can cry my heart out to without it being broadcast to the world. My only companions are my books and movies online. I don’t even do social media.

A cousin bravely killed herself a few years ago, and I secretly admired her for that.

Running on Empty

What is it about your life that you find empty? Is it because you’ve had no struggles, you’ve had it too easy—specifically with money?

It’s been said that happiness is making the most of what you have, and riches is making the most of what you’ve got. Could you have been too confined and interested solely in yourself and deeply involved with no other, that you’ve become dismissive, insensitive and bereft of other people’s existence if they stared you in the eye?

Would it help if you started driving around our city and seeing what unhappy looks like? Unshod and barely clothed children for whom dirt has become a second skin? Or whole families with toddlers having a meager meal in between the plants along the islands on Edsa? Or illegal vendors on sidewalks with their pathetic and miserly goods who scurry for cover from the police ?

You probably should have a bit of colliding interests to provide some challenge and reason to exist. There is so much to live for; just ask patients with terminal cancer who are about to leave behind kids they’ll never see grow up, or children who have barely started life but are already on life support. You get the message.

It’s human nature to yearn for what you cannot have. It’s also true that nobody cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy. Life is short for many who have loads of things to finish but can’t. If you’re finding your life too long and dismal, pick up something and learn from it. Your empty world is all in your mind.

E-mail the author at [email protected] or [email protected].