If you’re reading this, the world isn’t over.
But, anyone who believes the world will end today – because of “predictions” in the ancient Mayan calendar – must not be expecting to receive the next Great Bend Tribune on Sunday. Either an asteroid, or aliens, or maybe a supernova, are scheduled to bring on our destruction by midnight, or by 2018 if you factor in all of the leap years that the ancient calendar missed.
To quote rock band R.E.M., “It’s the end of the world as we know it – and I feel fine.”
 It won’t be the last time (we hope) that the end of the world is predicted. There are dates already set from 2018 through 2037, and that’s just for this century. For the Mayans, civilization disappeared long before their calendars did. But for a long list of doom-sayers, the last day came and went.
Psychic Jeane Dixon predicted that a planetary alignment on Feb. 4, 1962, would bring destruction to the world.
Christian ministers have been setting dates for the Rapture that include 1977, 1988 and several dates in between and after. Hal Lindsay was able to turn his predictions into several best-selling books, including “The Late, Great Planet Earth.” Broadcaster Harold Camping started making end-of-the-world predictions in 1994. His last predicted last date was Oct. 21, 2011.
Followers of other religions have made similar errors. There have also been secular predictions. On Jan. 1, 2000, the Y2K Bug was supposed to bring civilization to a standstill, sort of like what happens in that sci-fi TV series “Revolution,” where all of the machines have quit working and can’t be fixed or rebuilt.
Some who heeded end-days prophets died, such as 38 of the followers of Marshall Applewhite, leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult. In 1997, he claimed the end was near but said the faithful could board their souls on a spacecraft scheduled to arrive behind the Comet Hale-Bopp. Applewhite and 38 others committed mass suicide.
Cult leader Jim Jones, whose followers drank poisoned Kool-Aid in 1978, had predicted the world would end in 1967. If only everyone had realized that Jones was freaky deaky bat guano crazy a decade earlier, the mass suicide and killings at Jonestown might not have happened.
So, lighten up, and never believe someone who “knows” the cosmic plan. This is a good day for an end-of-the-world party, and a good day to hug a loved one, or a good day to sing along with your favorite band. “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”