Attaining the annihilation of the self is the true aim of the bodhisattva, or enlightened one. It doesn't mean becoming nothing, it means becoming the depth of all things.
How is it possible to be the depth that can hold the universe? No one is capable of being that alone, or for any extended length of time. It takes thousands of people collectively being that depth for one person to arrive.
As we enter in and out of selflessness, we experience renewal. Sometimes we get lucky because others help us to feel needed, and that need allows us let go of our selfishness to help -- in those times, our becoming the depth is a gift we are given.
On long runs, I sometimes feel as though I am un-becoming; losing the "me" that I hold onto so tightly in my life. It is a good feeling. Brought down to my most essential elements, it becomes clear that even those are not really mine. The blood, the heart, and the breath are water that will return to their source.
From Mary Oliver:
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
--from her poem, "Sleeping in the Forest"
From Foday Musa Suso and Philip Glass, a beautiful song called, "Spring Waterfall":
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