A Special Kind of Being Nothing

I was a young boy walking through a shopping mall when I read a sentence I never forgot.

"Nobody is perfect. But who what to be a nobody?"

The world pushes you to be someone, make something of your life. "You’re the best of the best of the best..." Nobody wants to be the worst. Nobody wants to be a nobody. But, some of us, sometimes, look into our lives and ask "what have I done with my life so far?" We've been given the gift of being alive and what have we done with it?

My parents are not rich. I'll never be a famous actor. I won't probably have the million dollar idea in my lifetime. For those to have these thoughts, maybe their focus is on the wrong track. Money is important in the way we have structured society, but it should never define who you are, what you can achieve in your life, or who do you become.

Perhaps the best way is to look at some examples of people who made their mark in the history of the world.

Aristoteles

Plato

Newton

Einstein

Martin Luther King

Mahatma Gandhi

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Buddha

… Jesus

All these people still influence our society today. Even Aristoteles who lived over 300 years B.efore C.hrist. But don’t you agree that Jesus was the most influential? About a third of the world population is Christian. Even our western calendar is B.C.E. - Before Christ Event - and A.C. - After Christ. What made Jesus so special that influenced human history for over 2000 years?

Ok. Those who are christian and believe in him argue he was God. If that is true I understand, but even then I wonder why would a God choose to become human in Jesus? If I don’t believe the way Christians do, or even if I’m atheist, the question is pertinent.

Look at Jesus' life.

Was he a rich man? No.

Was he a famous actor? No, he was a carpenter.

Has he fought for human rights like Martin Luther King, starved for peace like Gandhi, made a charity work the size Mother Teresa made, made a breakthrough scientific discovery like Einstein? No. No. No. NO.

Seriously!? What is it with Jesus then?

The guy preached (a lot of people do it these days), some say he performed miracles (ok, that’s something, but doctors do it every day to be honest), but this only lasted three years. After that he was arrested, beaten, humiliated, spitted on, screamed at, nailed, pierced by a spear and killed.

What’s so special about this Jesus, who lived a simple life and died horribly? If he had an indisputable influence in this world, there must be something that made him special.

Be a nothing.

If he is God, taking the human implied being nothing because we’re nothing compared with the All-Determining-Reality God is. Carpenter is a humble profession, which is nothing compared to a rich man in Galilea. Nobody expectes you to get rich by being a carpenter. Humility is a form of being nothing. The Passion reduced his humanity to nothing. And afterwards, even when he said with the Eucharist he would be forever present in the midst of us as wine and bread… that is nothing.

His way is a way of becoming nothing.

But it is a special nothing.

Everything he did, he did it out-of-love.

This is the secret.

He showed us a path of being someone through being a nothing out-of-love.

This brings an entirely new perspective to our lives, no matter how simple they are.

You are when you are not. If I give something to someone, I rest with nothing, right?

Being nothing is being a gift-of-yourself. And that, everyone who is not selfish enough can do.

You’ll be noticed when things happen through your discrete presence.

You are free if detached from the ideas of greatness the world imposes on you through movies, TV shows, social media.

Even if the condition you were born make your life a simple one. There’s no limits to the ability to love, and make every minute, second, millisecond of everything you do a possibility of being nothing out-of-love.

Jesus did it and he was truly human.

I’m human, so I can do it too.