The Art of Nothing Matters

Nothing matters.  Nothing.  No thing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zero.

No, really – think about it.  Your perceived insurmountable annoyances – your problems at work, your dwindling bank account, your bad knee, your ex, your age, your place in line, your broken toilet.  These are but potholes in the highway of life.  And dare I say, don’t really matter.

I want to be clear here – I’m not saying that what you experience and feel – and what you feel about those feelings isn’t real – they are.  But they don’t really matter.  Why?  Because our judgement is cloudy at best – formed by our flat tires and the man-made belief in the concept of lack.

The pinpoint viewfinder we stare through each day is narrow.  Like a clogged artery, it impedes flow.  Flow of ideas and love and air in; flow of fear and worry and doubt out.  We are so often laser focused on our own lives it is difficult to step back and widen our lens.  Just as when we look at the horizon and see what early explorer’s perceived to be a cliff, we too cannot grasp the unending nature of all that lies before us.

The indelicate reminder of this matter-less mindset is death.  Yup, the Big D.  We hate it.  We fear it.  We shy away from its glance.  But it’s there whether we like it or not.  Yet, it can be, if we allow it, a powerful tool to living.  By recognizing that most of the stuff we worry and fret about and waste our time chasing, doesn’t matter.  You know why?  Because when you die, it’s gone.  For you mostly – not always for those left behind – but for you, the matters disappear.  Poof.  They evaporate.  And here’s the crazier part – life goes on without you.  It does.  Sadly, mournfully, unapologetically onward.  How do I know?  I ask that you pay attention the next time you hear a news piece about a celebrity dying.  Whether tragically or due to old age, the news will report on it, question it perhaps, maybe even edit together a lovely video montage of their successes (and failures.)  The report will be wrapped and tagged with a polite and melancholy, he/she will be missed.  And then – as life itself – it’s off to the next topic…a  political crisis, the volatility of the stock market and the latest ice cream craze.

With that perspective in mind, I offer you this.  Let shit go.  Nobody cares.  Go to sleep early (or late).  Say no and don’t back down.  Tell people they are annoying.  Eat that pizza.  Spend less.  Call in sick to work.  Throw stuff away.  Just roll with it.  Why?  Because someday you will be entirely dead.  Morte.

Now – this nothing matters philosophy does not, I repeat, does not, give you permission to be a jerk, d-bag, bastard, pain-in-the-ass, self-absorbed, narcissistic member of society.  Exactly the opposite.  It means you step up to the plate ready to swing for the fences.  It means you bring your A-game to the day.  It means you stop sweating the small stuff as 8,000 books will tell you.  This letting go allows you to focus on the very few things that really do matter – like your health (without it you go directly to the Big D, you do not pass Go.)  And focus on your family and friends and anybody else you truly care about and tell them you love them and support them.  Try to laugh more, give back, find a cure.  Continue learning, hug it out, plant a tree.  Put your face towards the sun, say good job, and for goodness sake, put your phone down.  But most of all, focus on moving the cycle forward, in tiny ways, of human evolution just by being a kind, thoughtful, decent homosapien.

In the end, it’s the end.