Thing-hood in Buddhism and meaningfulness

I often struggle with feelings of despair about not so much that I will die but my mortality, my insignificance in a time as time never ends. But it also occurred to me that actually everyone is in the same boat (so to speak) and so as long as we don't let **things** define our value, then maybe life has meaning and value. Is that anything to do with emptiness, or is emptiness more an ontological doctrine than anything about value and meaningfulness ?