Counting down to nothing

As 2010 draws to a close plans are being made. Plans for the future, with dreams coming true, ideas bursting into fruition and expectant excitement for things to be better. Or for things to be no worse than they are now. If we want to improve ourselves and our situation, only we can do it. We need to take action if we want things to change, or do nothing if we want things to stay as they are… although doing nothing will cause things to deteriorate over time, so we need to do something at least to keep things ‘bobbing along’ as we like it.

Imagine if the great thinkers and inventors of the past did nothing. Where would we be today?

Well, first of all, we would be living on this flat plate that we call Earth. We wouldn’t travel very far in case we reached the end of it and fell off. But where would we fall to? We’d probably never reach the end of the Earth anyway as we’d have no way of getting there. There wouldn’t be any cars, coaches, trains, planes, boats, roller-skates or even shoes to get us there. In fact we wouldn’t even know that the Earth was flat because we wouldn’t be able to communicate with each other to speculate about it’s flatness or roundness. We wouldn’t be able to blog, even if we could communicate, as we’d have no computers to use, and if we had computers (by some random fluke) they wouldn’t work because we’d have no electricity. We’d be bathing in the rivers and seas, hunting for our supper, living in nests, and not be able to style our hair as we wouldn’t own a comb. We would be cold all of the time as we wouldn’t have fire – or clothes – and we would just have to sit around and wait to go back to sleep again, only to do it all again the next day. We wouldn’t know the season as we don’t have a calendar, and if we had any ideas at all, we would probably all think ‘what’s the point?’

See? Doing nothing without a reason is really pointless. Sometimes, doing nothing with a reason is equally pointless, but that all comes down to balance and perception; knowing whether to act or not. Luckily for us, those amazing people of yesteryear did something, created a better future for the world, even though a lot of what we have today we take for granted. We have some people today who are trying to make our future better too, but what is stopping us from joining them?

Here is my countdown of the top ten reasons why we choose to do nothing:

9. I’ll let someone else do it. I’m far too busy doing my own nothing to do something else.

8. Everything is already in the world. I’m too late to bring something new into it.

7. My ideas are rubbish. I’ll be made a laughing stock.

6. If I was meant to create something, I wouldn’t have been born in this time.

5. It’s not worth my while.

4. Why should I do this for them when they won’t do it for me?

3. I can’t afford it.

2. Someone will steal my idea as their own.

1. Pah! If someone wants something let them think of it!

0. No reason. We simply choose not to.

All valid reasons, all perfectly acceptable, and as I’ve thought of them all they are things that I think (although maybe a little less harshly.) Not very positive though.

If I can do something, I will do it. My ‘invention’ may be out in the world already, but it isn’t in my world otherwise I wouldn’t think it would be needed, however my invention would be unique to me. No idea is rubbish – even the rubbish ones just need tweaking slightly (if, even, at all.) It is never too late to start, and any idea is worth going for! Start the craze and others will join in! If money is needed it will appear. If someone runs with my idea, so be it, they may make it even better – but they and I would know who’s idea it was (not really wanting credit, but credit where credit is due, and always remember the Law of Threefold Return!) There is always something that the world wants, they just need to be shown what it is!

A resolution: I can do something… I can choose to act! Now there’s a plan for the future!