OP-ED: The end isn’t that near … right?
During my lifetime, there have been more doomsday predictions than I can count.
Religious leaders, cult founders and politicians have been warning, “The end is near,” for as long as I’ve been around. I looked ’em up. Harold Camping had billboards, Marshall Applewhite had his spaceships, Jim Jones had his Kool-Aid, and Elizabeth Clare Prophet (a great name for someone in the apocalypse business) warned us plenty of times that the end was near.
By my count, the world should have ended at least 30 or 40 times already since I was born. And those were just the most popular events. Heck, if we count the less publicized predictions, we should have all been vaporized or eaten by locusts hundreds of times by now.
Do you remember Y2K? I was running a hospital at the time and left the New Year’s Eve party to check on our “war room,” where the IT team and senior leaders were gathered around a television, waiting for planes to fall from the sky and computers to melt down. As the ball fell in Times Square, the lights went out. For a few terrifying seconds, we thought it had actually happened. Then when we noticed the TV was still on, we realized someone had accidentally leaned against the light switch. Civilization had survived again.
In 2012, there was a massive scare around the Mayan calendar. The only thing that ended was the sale of fake stone-carved calendars. Oh, and how about the killer bee scare? We were supposed to be stung to death or eaten by fire ants by now.
Yet here I am, still paying taxes and still getting 10 robocalls everyday about the car warranty on a car we traded in 2009.
Well, the Doomsday Clock is at 89 seconds to midnight now, the closest it’s been since the clock and I both started ticking in 1947. It means we are potentially seconds away from a nuclear catastrophe, climate collapse, another pandemic, and artificial intelligence taking over. (I’m hoping AI can fix my Wi-Fi connection first.)
When you’ve heard this negative stuff for nearly eight decades straight, you start to think “Whatever.” Sure, the threats like wars, climate change, bird flu, and AI might be real, but we can’t live under a cloud all the time.
Remember the scene from “The Matrix” where Neo has to choose between taking the red pill and living the reality of the world’s terrifying mess, or the blue pill life of blissful ignorance? I’m saying take the blue pill and wash it down with a Southern Comfort Manhattan.
Let’s learn to practice happiness. Life is too short to watch the news for the latest catastrophe or to stockpile canned beans in the basement. Go to the beach, eat ice cream, and annoy your kids or grandkids with bad jokes.
Every major end-of-the-world prediction has one thing in common: They were wrong. And chances are, today’s batch of prophets won’t nail it either.
Does that mean we should ignore real problems? Heck, no. Climate change is serious. Nuclear weapons are serious. Pandemics are serious. But seriousness doesn’t mean we have to give in to depression and worry.
So, what should we do? Let’s practice happiness like it’s our job. Look for joy where you can. Try gardening, dancing, laughing, or sipping that Manhattan as the sun goes down. Love the people around you. And stop waiting for the world to end long enough to live in it.
Here’s reality: Someday, the prophets will finally be right. But by then, try to be so busy laughing, loving, and practicing happiness that it won’t matter. That’s a much better way to spend whatever time we do have if it’s 89 seconds or 89 years.
Nick Jacobs lives in Windber.