In mathematics, nothing is something. The number zero has existence just like any other number.

Outside the world of digits, nothing means, well, nothing.

There’s nothing left to eat.

She said nothing to me when I called her.

Nothing happened after we came home.

But what about when someone says, “I did nothing all day yesterday.” Isn’t doing nothing still doing something? Author Lin Yutana said, “If you spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live,” {doing nothing.}

Some have made a career doing nothing with their lives, but most responsible people who work a full day for a long time are not given much an opportunity to do nothing even for an hour.

Author Cassandra Clare wrote, “… doing nothing, I find, rarely accomplishes anything.” I disagree. When the mind and body are still, they have a chance to re-energize. Whether we stare at a TV screen or at the wall in front of us, we are removed from the mental and physical demands in our lives that can cause burnout.

The word “nothing” is mostly thought of as a negative. “After the storm, there was nothing left of our house” or “He means nothing to me.” Yet the word can be used to make a positive remark. Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy wrote, “We can only know that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”

“Nothing” means something to a writers’ sense of humor. Poet Oscar Wilde wrote, “I love to talk about nothing. It’s the only thing I know anything about.” Author Michel Houellebecq said, “Anything can happen in life, especially nothing.” Writer J. Cole wrote, “The bad news is that nothing lasts forever. The good news is that nothing lasts forever.”

Philosophers believe that pure nothingness cannot exist. Consider this conversation.

Jo: What are you doing?

Mo: I’m doing something.

Jo: Looks to me like you’re doing nothing.

Mo: Doing nothing is still doing something. I’m lying on the couch. That’s doing something.

Jo: You’re doing nothing while you’re doing something then.

Mo: I am existing on this couch. That’s doing something.

Jo: The couch exists all by itself and it does nothing.

Mo: Not true. The couch is resting my body. That’s doing something.

Jo: So, is there ever a time when nothing is nothing and is not something?

Mo: Yes. Right now. There is nothing left to talk to you about.

An article on the website INSEAD is titled, “The Benefits of Doing Nothing.”

The author says, “Doing nothing could be the key to a healthy and happy life. More and more of us find ourselves unable to juggle overwhelming demands and maintain a seemingly unsustainable pace. Paradoxically, the best way to get more done may be to spend more time doing less,” reports The New York Times.

“A new and growing body of multidisciplinary research shows that strategic renewal — including daytime workouts, short afternoon naps, longer sleep hours, more time away from the office and longer, more frequent vacations — boosts productivity, job performance and, of course, health.”

Tell that to your boss, who just might need to do nothing more than you do. The article also states: “There are costs to working too much. Spending more time working means having less time for the people in your life and less time to sleep. Researchers have found that getting less than six hours of sleep each night is one of the best predictors of burn out. Working too much is also associated with low morale, depression, substance abuse, sleep deprivation.”

Over time, your productivity suffers.

Instead of working harder, work smarter. Take time off. Accounting firm Ernst & Young studied the issue of vacations and found that yearly employee performance improves by 8% for each 10 hours of vacation time employees take. These frequent vacationers were also less likely to quit the company.

Here’s more advice given about how not to be consumed by your job: “Doing nothing can involve remaining still, but there are other ways to let your mind rest. You just need an unrelated activity.

Taking a walk, going for a drive, or reading a book each provides opportunities to shut your brain off. Having regular breaks helps as well.

When you oscillate between focused work and relaxation time (e.g. 45 minutes of work, then 10 minutes of break), you can come back to your tasks renewed.

You can set a timer if it helps, but sometimes the biggest challenge is simply to learn to say no to unimportant tasks and having the right priorities.”

So, to redefine the word, “nothing” can mean anything or everything depending upon its interpretation. It can mean “zero” in mathematical applications. It can be negative or positive in language usage, but it cannot be neutral.

Nothing is always something. I’ll have nothing to do after I finish this column, but whatever it is that I’m not doing, it will still be something that I am not doing.

Email Rich Strack at richiesadie11@gmail.com.