Today is my 50^th.

My fiftieth blog.

Writing a blog is easy. I mean the actual writing of the blog, well, that’s the easy part.

The hard part is deciding what to write about and for fifty weeks now I have diligently spent my Saturday mornings stressing over a topic and every week I have eventually come up with one and delivered to you my faithful readers, a blog that I’m sure you will all agree, is compelling, electrifying, enlightening, life changing, brilliant, magnificent, revolutionary, exciting, thought provoking, challenging and damn good.

Or perhaps just the rantings of a lunatic.

Until this week.

This week I couldn’t think of anything.

Nothing came to mind.

I had a mental blog.

And then it hit me.

I could write a blog about nothing.

After all if some guy named Seinfeld could do a TV show about nothing then surely I could string a few words together about nothing.

The idea was nothing short of genius.

And so I sat down to write my blog.

Nothing came to mind.

Nothing caught my attention.

Nothing grabbed me.

And then I started thinking about careers where nothing is a prerequisite for success.

For example, politicians talk for hours and say nothing.

When they’re finished talking they go to work and do nothing.

Frequently, in the course of an entire career, they accomplish nothing.

And when you call a company to complain of poor service, what happens? Nothing.

And you call the police to report a drunk driver and what do they do? Nothing.

And the courier company loses your package and what happens? Nothing.

And you take Viagra as per the directions and what happens? Nothing.

And as you get older and go to the bathroom, what happens? Nothing.

And you eat prunes and wait. Nothing.

And when I realized how much nothing there is it dawned on me how vital nothing is to our very existence.

Without nothing our lives would be, well, nothing.

And so we need to start showing nothing the respect it deserves.

We need to appreciate nothing.

We need to be grateful for nothing.

We need to include our friends in nothing.

And nothing is the most versatile option we have.

We can do nothing.

We can say nothing.

We can eat nothing.

We can drink nothing.

We can wear nothing.

And we can save a lot of money by buying and using nothing.

For example, “Nothing Runs Like A Deere” – so why waste money on a tractor.

And, “Nothing outlasts the Energizer” – so don’t waste money on batteries.

And, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvin’s” – let’s leave that one alone.

And, “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux” – so use nothing to vacuum your rugs.

And nothing stops this list from growing.

And I began to wonder how much we can do that costs nothing.

We can smile at everyone we meet. The cost? Nothing.

We can say “please” and “thank you.” The cost? Nothing.

We can pledge not to gossip. The cost? Nothing.

We can praise a co-worker for a job well done? The cost? Nothing.

We can have friendships based on sincerity and mutual liking, not expediency. The cost? Nothing.

We can stop judging others through the distorted lens of our own superiority. The cost? Nothing.

We can tell our friends how much we appreciate them. The cost? Nothing.

We can keep our word. The cost? Nothing.

We can treat everyone respectfully. The cost? Nothing.

We can put others first. The cost? Nothing.

Imagine if we all committed our lives to these practices?

Now that would be really something.

Till we read again.

 P.S. A number of people who have read my book, “Life Sinks or Soars – the choice is yours, have asked me to develop a workshop that will allow readers to apply the principles of the book to their daily lives. I am close to completing the workshop and will be presenting it on a regular schedule commencing this fall. If you would like more information about these and other workshops please send an email to rael@raelkalley.com with the words “workshop info” in the title and you will be added to our mailing list.

P.P.S. A number of readers contacted me this week to say they had visited my sister Gillian’s travel, dining, theatre and entertainment blog. You can read Gillian’s blog at www.reviewfromthehouse.com