Fears about December 2012 Overblown
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From exploring on the internet recently, I have discovered that a lot of people are very anxious this year, mainly because it’s 2012 and there’s a great deal of fear concerning the Mayan calendar and the possibility that the end of the world is coming as the calendar runs out December the 21st.
Now I can’t tell anyone if the Mayan calendar is right or not and if the end of the world is coming, but I do know that having fear about such a thing is a waste of good energy and it doesn’t help anyone to allow their fears to manifest into something that is really tangible. For one thing, if it is true, then there is nothing any of us can do, so why spend any time worrying about it?
Some may go out and buy up a great deal of survival supplies such as food and water, batteries and flashlights and maybe some who can afford it will build themselves protective shelters in hopes that they can live through some kind of natural disaster, or even Armageddon. For all who would be interested to know, Armageddon is a biblical term and it isn’t about some natural disaster destroying the Earth but about good versus evil and a final battle.
I think many of our fears are supplanted by watching too many movies, me being one of those guilty of this myself. I love watching “end of the world’ movies such as Armageddon, War of the Worlds, Independence Day, etc. but they’re still just movies with no real basis of fact.
Fear is something that we all deal with some time in our lives and it’s understandable that human nature would give us a natural fear of certain things, such as death and sickness, but how we deal with it will determine our happiness. We have a choice to either live for today and enjoy life or to simply allow every prediction made by someone or some group to influence our lives.
The Mayans like many; if not all ancient tribes were highly superstitious with beliefs in many different gods. There is still much to learn about this tribe but many of their traditions were similar to the Incas and the Aztecs. Many of their customs and beliefs were based on cycles of time and positions of celestial bodies and astronomy and much of their superstitions were based on their lack of knowledge.
Also it isn’t true that they simply disappeared. They, like many of those from the different tribes of Mexico and South America, they simply integrated into the modernization of society after the occupation of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century. If you know a lot of Hispanic people from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, you probably know someone who is a descendant from the Mayans or one of the other tribes such as the Incas and the Aztecs.
Besides this prediction, there have been predictions of doom for as long as history is known about our world. Old civilizations carried forth many different religions that sometimes melded into other religions. The Mayans were no different from many of these ancient civilizations from all around the world. Though they may have been quite industrious and understood some things that other cultures didn’t understand, they still lacked a great deal of knowledge that we have in this modern age.
As far as those who’re Christians or at least were brought up to believe Christian teachings, should know that Christian beliefs do not coincide with Mayan religion or their predictions. Christ himself said that no man knows the hour of his return, let alone the exact day of the end of the world.
Of course, many will allow their fears to cause them to do very stupid things the closer December 21st arrives and my only prediction here is that many people will come out of the protective holes they’ve built for themselves on December 22nd and realize that it’s just another day in a world full of problems.
For me and many of the more level-headed people out there, we will go about our lives as we always do, with plans for the future and hopes for a better tomorrow.
