2012 is Coming: What Are You Doing About It?

Nora Dunn — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:42:15 +0000

The end of the Mayan calendar. Global Warming. Asteroids hitting the earth. Terrorism. The magnetic poles switching. Super volcanoes blowing. The earth’s axis wobble completing. The sun reaching the centre of the galaxy.

A perfect storm of events, many of which are prophesized to occur on the very day of winter solstice: December 21st, 2012.

There are a number of clues and theories being tossed around to support the idea that December 21st, 2012 may mark the “end of days”. Simply turn on the television, search the internet, or read the papers and you’ll find a plethora of information to this effect.

These projections could well be supportable, or not. There are just as many articulate doomsday theories as there are legitimate cases for the world continuing on status quo after 2012.

The question is: who do you choose to believe?

Do you believe the prophecies?

If you do, then the world as we know it is ending or changing unpredictably and unequivocally in just over four years. What are you doing now? How are you living your life so that you have no regrets when the ultimate Judgment Day falls upon you? What will the next four years of your life look like?

Maybe you don’t like your job. Will you go after that dream job with everything you have because you have nothing to lose? And if you do, where will that dream take you? Is it possible that it could lead you to greater success and happiness than you ever imagined?

Maybe you don’t like where you live. Will you open up the map and pick a place you’ve always wanted to visit or live because you want to enjoy the rest of your days in your own paradise? And what will that look like? How will your life change by virtue of you changing your surroundings and living in the most fulfilling place for the next (your last?) four years?

Maybe you aren’t happy with your current relationship with family members. Will you end that unhealthy marriage, or finally suggest seeing a counselor in an effort to regain happiness for the last four years of your life? Will you make an effort to mend bridges with your estranged kids or parents, the hopes of rebuilding a foundation of love and support?

Maybe you aren’t as altruistic as you’d like to be. Will you sell everything and move to a place where have-nots are struggling to survive, and stand shoulder to shoulder with them in search of the better life? Will you improve the last four years of their lives?

Maybe you’ll do that skydive you’ve yearned for but been scared to follow through on. Maybe you’ll buy a motorcycle and fly along the coastal roads you’ve only seen in your nighttime dreams. And maybe – just maybe – you’ll find yourself in a completely different place you had ever imagined yourself being on December 21st 2012, and feeling something you never anticipated or understood – true happiness and no regrets.

But…

Then again, maybe you’ll wake up on December 22nd, 2012, realizing the world didn’t implode as predicted. Maybe you’ll be penniless and naked on some beach in Argentina with the hangover of a lifetime. Will you be happy? If not, how will you pick up the pieces of the life you shattered and move forward?

Do you not believe the prophecies?

If you don’t believe the doomsday predictions, then there is no reason to change a thing. Maybe you are planning for a long prosperous life prudently and responsibly.

Maybe you are happy with your job and career. Or not quite happy per se, but satisfied enough with your routine, taking comfort in the knowledge that it will provide the kind of future you are looking for – be it promotions, a comfortable retirement, or just a decent paycheck.

Maybe you like where you live. Sure it may not be ideal, but real estate in the area will take off shortly and you want to see the price of your home grow in value. Or real estate in the area will recover shortly and once you recoup your loss of equity since you made the purchase you can sell your home and move somewhere more satisfying.

Maybe you are happy with your current family relationships. You & your spouse are still like honeymooners, and you speak with your parents/kids regularly. You communicate honestly and healthily, and provide and receive a level of support that is nurturing and compliments your personality. Or you don’t, but the relationships you are in serve their purpose, and are good “for now”. You can work on improving, changing, or ending these relationships a little later in life when it’s more convenient.

Maybe you give to charity regularly and volunteer your time for worthy causes. Or you don’t quite yet, but you will as soon as you get your business to the point where you’ll have enough time to. Soon.

Maybe you’d like to skydive, and get that motorcycle, but you have a few things on your plate first to take care of. You are waiting for your next pay raise to finish paying off that pesky debt, you are waiting for the kids to get a little older, you are waiting for the mortgage to be paid off, or you are just plain waiting. “Tomorrow ,” you say.

But…

What happens if tomorrow really doesn’t come? Will you plod through the next four years of your life making ends meet, planning for and promising yourself a better life “later”, only to discover with horror that “later” never comes? How will you feel on December 21st, 2012, when you realize you can’t take it with you?

Living life with wanton disregard for the future (financially and otherwise) is a death sentence, whether or not the world will come to a crashing end in four years. There is nobody to plan your future but you, and if you don’t take responsibility for your actions now and later, you will most certainly find unhappiness at some point in life.

A friend once said to me “being young and poor is romantic. Being old and poor is just sad.” And I can’t agree more.

But living life with no regard for the hum-drum existence you are in today, just because you don’t have the perceived ability to change things, or because you are convinced that tomorrow things will be better, is also a death sentence. You will become a walking zombie, and if you get hit by that proverbial bus tomorrow, your friends and family will only be able to say “it’s too bad they never saw Greece – it was a dream of theirs, but there was always some reason why they couldn’t go”. Or you manage to make it to your long-planned-for retirement – when things are supposed to be all better – and you realize that with your new physical and medical issues you can’t travel, or ride a motorcycle, or otherwise live that dream life you planned for during your soul-sucking working career. The remaining 30 years of your life become a prison in which you can’t do anything you worked an entire lifetime to enjoy. You find yourself waiting and planning for tomorrow – because there’s nothing to live for today and maybe tomorrow will be different.

You can’t always have your cake and eat it too. Sometimes we all have to suck it up and deal with a little pain now for a whole lot of gain later. Hedonism is not practical. Neither is martyrdom.

So what do you choose to believe? Will the world as we know it end on December 21st, 2012? Maybe. Maybe not.

But…what if?

This article is from Nora Dunn of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: