Reflecting on years of working with patients and their families, as well as working in the community.  I was struck today by the power of math.  Zero is an amazing number.  Anything added to zero stays the same.   Zero is neither positive or negative.  So many times I see people bring zero to a relationship or a community project.  First they don’t show up, or show up in person but bring zero to the relationship or project.  This often happens when I am negotiating at meetings between two parties. The first is trying to effect change, but the second party has brought zero to the meeting.  The only way change can happen is if the first party wants to persist knowing that the second party has nothing to add, or subtract.  Now remember anything times-ed by zero is zero.  I run into these people as well.   Any project, tasks, activity, or relationship they are involved in ends up with nothing there.   The group can be making great progress adding their skills and abilities, then they try to times their sum efforts by zero, and then nothing is left. The problem is that we often know to look out for the negative people or groups.  But the zeroes often end up taking us by surprise.