We’re nearly there.
Dec. 21, 2012.
The supposed date the Mayans predicted would be the end of the world. The date that many (non-mainstream) scholars say that something biblical might happen. A day which might be the dawn of a new era.
So we’ve had movies made about this date. People have joked about this date – my favorite was the joke that Hostess was in on the end of the world, which is why we briefly lost Twinkies and Ho-Hos. Some people are secretly fearful of this date, they just don’t want to admit it.
Despite the fact that no credible scientists, astronomers, historians or scholars support the theory of the world coming to an end next Friday (no, really, anyone with any credibility calls it hogwash), let’s play the game: let’s say it happens.
Are you ready?
Are you ready to meet your maker? Did you do everything you want? Have you lived life to its absolute fullest? I doubt it. I certainly have not. Because we rarely reach 100 percent. We talk of giving 110 percent, but really, we never approach it. There is always more that can be done or given.
As humans, we operate under the assumption that there is always time. It may be finite in the sense we know that we are going to die, but we don’t know when that will be and we always perceive it to be in the distant future. If we’re 10, it’s something like 1,000 years away.
At 20, we think we’re barely a quarter of the way through life. At 30, we know it’s lingering, but it’s only around 11:00am in the day of our life. At 60, we know it’s dinner time, but there’s still so much to do before bed.
And I would surmise that even at the end, for most, there’s a feeling right up until they die that there is still a little bit of time left, another day, another hour, another minute to do something.
Five days after the supposed end of the world, I’ll turn 33. That’s my basketball jersey number from high school. And in high school, I thought about how both young and old that number sounded as an age. It was so far away – fifteen years! What would I do in fifteen years?
The question should have been, what will I do with fifteen years? Because the choice was entirely up to me.
It doesn’t necessarily matter how it was spent, just the fact it was spent. It’s gone and I can never get it back. Some years I don’t want back, they were perfect. Other years, I’d do over. Then I break it down further.
How about the months? The days? The hours? How about you? Care for any do-overs?
Well, too bad, you can’t have them. But that doesn’t mean you can’t change how you spend the future.
We’re an extremely strange bunch. We spend minutes waiting, hours wasting, days gone, months pass and become years.
I’ve read the famous poem, The Dash. And I’ve read “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Seuss. And I’ve certainly read many passages of the Bible. All evoke feeling, emotion and reaction. I’ve heard great motivational speakers and felt, well, motivated. And I have been depressed by watching friends, family and even myself waste precious time. That can be motivating too.
But watching others or listening to the success or problems of others doesn’t actually change me or you. We are the only ones who can do that ourselves.
All of it adds up to life. It’s unpredictable. We can never know what’s in store. Our faith can have us believe without question that there is a heaven without knowing what it is like. We don’t need to see a million dollars to know it’s real. We have faith that something either exists or it doesn’t. Likewise, the absence of faith can have believe that there is nothing after we’re gone.
One is comforting, the other, wildly depressing. But neither is known as pure fact and truth.
That, in essence is life. We either believe or we don’t. We either believe we can do better and become more, or we don’t. We either believe in heaven or we don’t. We mangle life with shades and gray and nuance, but really, it’s black and white.
Happiness is derived from a feeling of joy, not by an action. Nothing technically makes you happy – you feel that way. Watching a ballgame and going on a date with my wife elicit a feeling of happiness. In turn, nothing makes you sad – you feel that way. A sick child elicits a reaction of compassion and pain, which qualifies as sadness because it’s an emotion.
It’s all perspective and outlook. It’s how the death of a loved one is seen by some as a release to a greater place, should they be of a resounding faith and belief. To others, it’s the loss and how it impacts their life and the sadness by not being able to see, touch or be with them.
This difference in perspective is how Bo Jackson shrugged off his devastating hip injury and went on with life and found something else to do. The most remarkable and gifted athlete of perhaps all time, who could literally do almost anything, found something else to do in his early 30s. Because there was more to do.
The opposite perspective is how some people reach a point where ending their life is the only possible outcome: there’s nothing else to do.
So ask yourself how you feel about Dec. 21, 2012, if it were true. Or ask yourself what if your world ends in six months, six years or 66 years. The less time there is, the more we try to do. Why not the opposite? Why not with more time, don’t we resolve ourselves to do more?
Because there’s time, right? Except that we don’t know that as truth or fact. We’re assuming. And assumptions cannot be validated.
Whether or not you believe that on Friday, December 21, 2012 the world will end or not, ask yourself the question if you are ready.
I would venture to say 99.8 percent of us are not. And that’s because we aren’t wired that way.
For me, in a spiritual sense, I am ready, though not prepared – if that makes any sense. I am content with whatever my fate may be. But I’m not ready to go. I want to do more with my wife and children. I want more time with them – time that I already miss or waste, and time that I will miss in the future. I want to see more places. I want to do different things. I’m not even close to prepared for all that I want to do.
The thing is, I may never be. If my last breath occurs at 121 years old, I doubt I’d be ready. Because we make choices, forced or not, of how we will spend our time. There’s no multitasking life. We choose what we do with our time, our seconds, our minutes, our hours, our days, months and years.
There is a trade-off. For everything we do, there is something we did not. For whomever we marry or choose to be with, there are thousands of options we’re taking off the table. Those that are certain that they were destined to be with that person don’t even think about these other options. I believe, without question, my wife and I were meant for each other, therefore, there is nothing missed in all the other possibilities, because they weren’t possible to begin with.
It’s the classic “grass is greener” concept. For everything we choose to do, there are thousands of other possibilities.
Or are there? What if we’re meant to do exactly what we’re doing at any given moment? Kind of frees you up to enjoy and just simply be, doesn’t it?
Yet no matter what, life will end at some point, with us thinking we have another day, another hour, another minute to do something else.
Are you ready? Better yet, will you ever be? Can you ever be ready for what you can’t really prepare for?
Forget Dec. 21, 2012, how about Dec. 23, 2021? Or June 18, 2034? What will we do with whatever we have left? Can we get it all done in time?
Probably not.
But we can damn sure try.
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