Off by a few months?

Were the Mayans off by a couple of months, or more, in predicting the end of the world? If you will recall, there was a lot of buzz regarding the Mayan calendar not going over Dec. 21, 2012. Many read this as the Mayans believing that there wasn't going to be a Dec. 22, 2012, because the world as they knew it would end! And so did a lot of doomsday believers in our time. They sold all they owned, even borrowed from banks and loan sharks, lived it up, thinking all bets would be off by the 22nd! Of course, the sun still rose on that day, and life went on. We celebrated Christmas and the coming of a new year. And what happened to all those who believed it would all end? Who knows? Maybe it did end for them. Especially if the loan sharks came knocking at their doors.

But recent events have once again fueled the speculation that the end times are upon us. The rising of China as a superpower is one of those signs. The “East” has always been associated with the “new power” over the West. With North Korea conducting a nuclear test, much to the chagrin of the rest of the world, apparently only adds further to the fulfilling of several predictions concerning this part of the planet!

Then we have the resigning of Pope Benedict XVI. If there is one event that fertilizes the minds of the doomsayers, it is this one. Who will his successor be? Will he be the anticipated third Anti-Christ, as predicted by no less than Nostradamus, who many believe got the first two right. Will he change the Catholic Church? The Holy See is a big thing among Catholics, and is not to be taken lightly. The almost one billion Catholics in the world are waiting for the white smoke rising from the Vatican's chimney, and the identity of the next cardinal who wears the Ring of the Fisherman.

And as if those events weren't enough, we just had two stellar events that could have come from a scene in “Armageddon”! An asteroid came whizzing by the earth, the closest one yet to miss our planet! Can you imagine if it did hit? Do we, or rather the US, have those ships that can land on an asteroid and crack it in half with a nuclear explosion? I sincerely doubt it! But wait, there's more. In Russia, a meteor enters the earth's atmosphere, lights up the Russian sky, then explodes with the force of several hundred pounds of TNT, shattering windows and glass for miles! Over a thousand people were hurt by the explosion. Again, what if it did not fragment and continued on to strike the earth? Will we have another Tunguska event?

All these in a span of two months into the new year. What do the coming months have in store for us? Will there be more of these doomsday-like events? Will it culminate into what everyone fears the most? It really makes you think. Personally, I wouldn't give it much thought. I'm much too busy to engross myself in such matters. I'll leave it to the doomsayers to figure it out. If it all ends, it all ends. As long as all of us go with it, right?

Right?