Nothing is a term that I have found most frustrating throughout my general life and career, it seems to fit the bill for many sentences that would have otherwise been constructive and descriptive. I’ll give an example before I go any further, it is IT based as this is where my work experience lies but I’m sure this happens in all jobs and walks of life…
“My computer is broken”
“What is it doing?”
“NOTHING”
“So, you hit the power button and no power light comes on? Sounds like a dead PSU to me”
“No, the light comes on but there’s some errors come up on the screen, can’t find something or other…”
Possibly not the greatest example but a real life situation that I’ve had to cope with on many occasions, something not acting as you’d expect it to clearly does not imply that nothing at all is happening. Diagnosis suddenly goes from logical steps to a hoop jumping act, wildly stabbing in the dark until the actual problem rears its head.
It has also occurred to me that the word nothing is a guaranteed conversation stopper in the same light, when asked what we’ve been doing of late our mind seems to immediately resort to the word nothing. If we had in fact done nothing of late then we would most probably have at least died of thirst thus making conversation impossible and the term ‘nothing’ once more a lie.
I’m no lifestyle guru by a very long shot but I do think that we could benefit greatly as human beings if we stop and think for just a second before defaulting to nothing. I can also guarantee that I both have been and will continue to be guilty of nothingness but I do intend to avoid it where-ever possible.
