Is “Nothing” the New Goal?  

A friend shared a social media post with the following quote: “When everyone is trying to be something, be nothing.”  I wanted to share something on this topic… 

Is “Nothing” the New Goal?  

Let us pause for a moment and ask: is “nothing” the new goal to aspire to? 

If it is, do we not immediately create an idea about it—a destination to reach, an ideal to attain? Doesn’t the pursuit of “nothing” become just another identification?  

We might picture ourselves sitting in stillness, striving to “be nothing,” or join meditation camps practicing techniques to achieve this state.  

And isn’t there another danger here—that one might mistake mere laziness or irresponsibility for having “arrived” at nothingness? We see this in those who abandon their duties and relationships, claiming they’ve transcended worldly concerns, when they’ve merely escaped into another form of psychological comfort.  

But if this “nothing” becomes a target, are we not merely replacing one form of becoming with another? 

This raises a deeper question: what is this drive to become?  

What does it mean to move from “what I am” to “what I want to be”? Can we observe this movement within ourselves without judgment or personal motive? 

Look at our daily lives. A student struggles to become top of their class, an executive visualizes the next promotion, a spiritual seeker imagines a state of enlightenment. What happens in this space between what is and what should be? Isn’t there constant comparison, struggle, anxiety? 

From childhood, we are conditioned to become—be it a better student, a successful professional, a leader, or even “nothing.” It’s not merely about acquiring skills or knowledge; it’s about identifying with an ideal image of what we should be.  

Consider the teenager scrolling through social media, measuring themselves against carefully curated images, or the beauty queen who deeply ties her sense of self to public recognition. If that recognition doesn’t come, doesn’t anguish follow? 

And what of those who “succeed” in their becoming? What happens to the doctor who achieved the dream, the champion who won gold, the artist who gained fame? Often, along with recognition comes isolation—the burden of maintaining that image.  

For those who fail, there might be bitterness or feelings of inadequacy. And for those still striving, isn’t there endless comparison between who they are and who they want to be? 

Can we observe without judgment how this psychological structure operates? See how it fragments us, creates conflict, breeds isolation? What happens when we look deeply at how this movement shapes our thoughts, relationships, and even society itself? 

What if someone realized that their relentless pursuit of achievement wasn’t driven by genuine interest but by the lure of societal recognition? What if a doctor practiced medicine without attaching any psychological identification or ego to it? 

The real question isn’t “How do I become nothing?” but rather, “What is this whole affair of becoming—and can it end?” Isn’t “becoming” itself an illusion crafted by our own thoughts and mental projections?  

Could it be that the very idea of “nothingness” is yet another product of our imagination, another pursuit of the mind? 

And in this very observation, without trying to change or achieve anything, without making it into another goal—what happens? What do we discover about the nature of who we are?