Athena appreciates the potential to find community online, but her chronic fatigue limits the time she can spend on the computer. Her friends from before her illnesses have mostly moved on; they rarely visit or return her calls or emails.

Here's Athena's question:

"How can someone like me be happy with few friends and little contact with the ones I have?"

I tried to think about Athena's life from three perspectives, and will frame my suggestions accordingly:

1. The big picture: What are some engaging long-term goals and projects to pursue?
2. The medium view: What kind of life tasks can you construct at the level of the coming days or weeks or months?
3. The present moment: How can you make each moment as intensely satisfying as it can be?

The Big Picture

When I first learned about Athena's story, I wished I didn't live so far away from her so I could talk to her in person and learn all about her. She has such a unique set of experiences. What is it like for her not to remember the person she used to be? How is it even possible to think about anything else if you are hungry and thirsty and tired and in pain all the time? How do you do it, Athena? How have other people reacted to you - the good, the bad, and the ugly? What do you wish they knew about your life? My first big-picture suggestion, then, is to write a memoir.

I realize that might sound like a formidable goal for someone who is so often so tired. The person who makes me think it might be possible is Laura Hillenbrand. She has chronic fatigue syndrome, a feeling of exhaustion so intense that even a walk to the mailbox needs to be followed by a nap. Still, she wrote a book about a horse who was a legend. Seabiscuit galloped to the top of the bestseller list, and then was made into a movie by the same name. You can read Hillenbrand's story, in her own words, in this New Yorker essay.

Another possibility is take the research you are doing (by asking me and others for suggestions), add to it, and create a self-help guide for other people facing challenges that must seem overwhelming. You can use your own experiences, and what you learn from other people and other sources, to address not just the people who have had too much stacked against them, but also the friends and family of those people. They probably don't always realize when they are doing or saying exactly the wrong thing. Include the great stuff, too - the times when people got it exactly right.

If writing isn't your favorite medium, you could also try creating audio or video materials conveying the same information. Do what works best for you.

The Medium View

What are the day-to-day and week-to-week endeavors that you find fulfilling? You've already recognized the potential of online groups - stick with ones you like and maybe look for others as well. As long as you are getting something out of them, keep them in your life.

Take the big-picture projects and break them down into smaller components. For example, if you like the idea of writing a memoir, and want to get input from others along the way, you could start writing parts of your memoir as blog entries.

For your self-help book (if you like that project), you could start a website where you invite other people who are facing so many daunting challenges to post their experiences and suggestions. Maybe you could have a resources section, where visitors can describe the ones they've found helpful.

These are all just suggestions that I hope you and others can improve upon. The goal is to pursue something you find so engaging that you want to think about it almost all the time. Something that, when you get wrapped up in it, makes you forget for a while all about any hunger or thirst or pain or fatigue. (Writing Singled Out was like that for me a lot of the time.)

The Present Moment

What gives you pleasure? Focus on it, intensify it, stretch it out, savor it. Take food, for instance. It is great that you eat foods that are good for you. Find the ones you like the best. Don't squander a single bite on something that tastes only okay.

Same for television and movies. There are so many possibilities (often affordable) for getting movies and TV series on DVDs, on demand, and from services such as Netflix. Watch what you love, not just whatever's on.

Are you too tired to sit at the computer, to read, or even watch TV? You can still listen to books on tape, or with those talking e-readers.

When you take your daily walks, are there wonderful sights or interesting people along the way? Stop and savor them, too.

Wherever you are, keep a paper and pen, or some electronic equivalent, within reach. You never know when you are going to have a great idea relevant to your medium and big-picture goals!

All the best, Athena! Now I'll see if I can get some others to offer their ideas, too.

[Other Living Single notes: (1). The shout-out board is off to a great start. Keep adding your suggestions and spread the word. (2) Keep sending me your nominations for enlightened blogs, websites, discussion groups, etc., about single life. My plan is to list them as part of my Valentine's Day post.]

Be sure to read the following responses to this post by our Bloggers:

In response to the latest Living Single post

by Irene S. Levine, Ph.D.

• 
• 
• Tweet

9 Reader comments join the discussion here!

Tags: 13 years, adversity, advice, athena, big picture, blogging, books, cancer, challenges, chronic fatigue, chronic fatigue syndrome, circumstances, entertainment, exercise, food, friends, goals, happiness, hunger, hunger and thirst, illness, illnesses, insights, junk food, living in the present, marital status, meaningful life, medical problems, memoir, movies, neurological disorders, new yorker, pain, personal relationships, perspectives, reading, researcher, resilience, savoring, self-help, singled out, television, thirst, website, writing