Looking Forward to the New Year

Can you believe there are only four days left in 2012? Where has the year gone? The older I get, the more I believe that time is relative, and it moves in proportion to your current age. There seems to be something inherently unfair about that, but one lesson I learned a really long time ago is that life is anything but fair. Therefore, the lesson you need to learn with time is to enjoy it while you have it. Don’t wish for time to move faster, for one day you will get your wish and realize what a foolhardy wish it was.

This year has had both its good and bad moments, and we experienced those both personally and as a nation. Hopefully, in the end, when you are assessing your year, you will have more good than bad moments.

For us, 2012 was a big year. Cody, my baby, graduated from high school, sharing valedictorian honors with one of his friends. Nicole graduated from college and began working on her MBA. Cody and Tiffany set a wedding date, so we’re counting down to July 13, 2013, and are busy making wedding plans. Byron and Theresa have yet to set a date, but we anticipate getting one soon. I got to see Rick Springfield for the first time in April, and then got to see him again in October. We also saw Journey and Bruce Springsteen this year. And, of course, perhaps the biggest event of 2012 happened on July 27 when my first grandchild was born. Mady has been a wonderful blessing to us all.

We have a lot to look forward to in 2013. As I’ve already mentioned, there is at least one wedding, possibly two, for our family. We’re looking forward to all the “firsts” that Mady will experience. My daughter will finish her MBA. We’re hoping Trav will be accepted to medical school.

Of course, we have no way to know all that 2013 will hold for us. We have to hope and pray for the best. Simply watching the headlines can leave us in quite the funk. There seems to be very little to look forward to, especially with that fiscal cliff looming there threatening to make 2013 a near-disaster for many of us. That may very well be our reality. However, if we’re to function, we have to do our best to try to keep a positive point of view. Trust me; I know how easy it can be to let an overwhelming situation encompass and drown you. We can’t do that, though. We have to look for the positive things that will occur in 2013, and there will be some good things that happen.

Over the next couple of days, I’m going to have to reflect about 2012 and how successful I was with my resolutions, and I’m going to have to decide what I want my goals for 2013 to be. Many of you will be doing the same. It will be easy to get caught up in what we didn’t do in 2012, but we need to focus instead on what we were able to accomplish and then focus on what we would like to accomplish in the new year. None of us had a perfect 2012. None of us accomplished everything we wanted to. However, all of us can us build on what we did accomplish and can work to make 2013 an even better year.

The World Will End When It Ends

Today is December 21, 2011, and according to some, it’s the beginning of the end, the countdown to the end of the world on December 21, 2012. The sad thing is way too many people are putting stock in this alleged Mayan prediction and honestly believe this will be the last year we have and that the world will end in one year. Not only is this kind of thinking sad, it can be dangerous. If people honestly believe there’s only one year left, they will do things and take risks they normally wouldn’t take, potentially putting themselves and others in danger.

The closer we get to December 21, 2012, the more interest there is in the alleged Mayan prophecy about the end of the world. Movies have been made about this date, books have been written, and lots of both information and misinformation about the topic are being posted on websites. I have students who can’t get motivated for studying other topics who want to ask me about the 2012 prophecy. So, here’s my take on the Mayan prophecy of the world’s end in 2012.

First, I don’t believe in any prediction that puts a date and time on the end of the world. I believe this simply because Matthew 24:36 (NIV) says “No one knows that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” There are numerous other verses in the Bible that also indicate man does not know and cannot calculate either when Jesus will return or when the end of time will be. Therefore, any prediction that includes a date and time will not be accurate. To further prove my point, look back through history at all the other predictions of the end of the world … all have been incorrect. Many other cultures have made similar predictions. Just this year, Harold Camping has predicted the end of the world not once but twice, and both times he was wrong. We are still here.

Second, from what I’ve read about the Mayan calendar, there are a couple of ways to interpret the information. One is that the world will end on that date. Another, more plausible, interpretation is that a new era will begin that day, and that rather than a message of fear surrounding the end of time, it should be one of hope anticipating good, new things to come. It makes more sense that this interpretation is correct, and it’s simply the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new one, because as we look back through time, we see a variety of cycles and eras. If you want to investigate the Mayan calendar more thoroughly, there are a variety of options available online to do so, and most of them include some information about how the Mayans believed a cycle existed before their current calendar, and that they would believe another cycle would begin at the end of their current calendar. Logically, then, that removes the assumption that the world will end because the calendar ended.

The fact is we neither know when the world will end nor when our life upon it will end. Therefore, we need to live every day without regrets, making solid decisions, and as if it could be our last day on Earth.

Over the course of the next year, many people will make poor decisions based on a false assumption that December 21, 2012, will be the end of the world. Many people will be taken in by scams. I hope that all of you will not fall into these two groups of people. Whether you agree with my reasoning or not, consider that previous predictions have been wrong. Continue to make logical decisions based on the presumption that the world will still be here on December 22, 2012. That way, when the world doesn’t end on December 21, 2012, you will still have a place to live, a car to drive, a job to go to, and money to buy groceries. You can wake up on December 22 and have a good day as you finish your preparations for Christmas.

Don’t become a news story sometime during the next year because you’ve fallen prey to the misguided notion that the world will end one year from today. Don’t spend the next year in a frenzied state, worrying yourself to death, about what will or will not happen next December. Instead, live your life. The world will end when it ends, and there’s no point in driving yourself into an early grave worrying about when it will happen.