by Karen Frazier, Managing Editor
Paranormal Underground e-Magazine

Come debate 2012 Doomsday in our forum!

Is the world really ending in 2012? Is doomsday at hand?

Every few years, a news item pops up that someone has predicted the end of the world. The media reports it, and a few people worry. But most don’t. How seriously can they take these predictions with the mack daddy of doomsday predictions looming in just three years?

And really – how much can we worry about dying at the hands of earth-annihilating comets or nuclear winter when we have pandemics like the swine flu threatening us this very minute AS WE SPEAK?

Yep – it’s a frightening world out there, and if you believe the media, we’re always just a breath away from the total annihilation of our species. Scary, huh? It’s amazing we’ve made it this far.

Stuff happens. Some of it bad stuff. Some of it scary stuff. But it happens whether we are whipped into a frenzy of fear about it or not. Which begs the question – if our worries have zero effect on the ultimate outcome, then why worry?

My father used to give a speech in which he said 95% of the things you worried about last year didn’t happen. 95%! I don’t know how accurate that statistic is, but it illustrates a larger point. We worry. A lot. About needless things. Remember Y2K? What a snooze that turned out to be. Probably a good thing I never built that Y2K bunker.

Which brings me back to 2012. There is a project called the Web-bot project that mines the Internet for keywords and then very effectively tracks coming trends in the stock market. It is almost uncannily accurate in these predictions. Some believe that it has other predictive powers as well. Hind-sight views of the Web-bot project’s predictions have been interpreted as predicting hurricane Katrina, 9/11 and some other major world events. The Web-bot project is “predicting” a world-wide calamity in 2012.

Here’s my question. How could it not? The Web-bot project mines keywords. Have you ever searched through keywords like 2012 and doomsday? Hint: They appear together a lot. If this modern-day oracle is basing its predictions on key words, it probably has picked up on the fearful language out there on the Internet that links keyword 2012 with keyword doomsday.

In his first inaugural address, FDR uttered the now-famous quote, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Smart man, FDR.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the “predictions” are true. Let’s say that the world is, indeed, going to end in 2012. Does worrying about that enhance or enrich your life in any way? Does it help you to live with more joy, love more fully or attempt to make a difference?

Fear is an emotion that keeps us from reaching our full potential. It wastes our time and wastes our energy. It causes us to marginalize or discriminate against people who are different from us. It paralyzes us, sticking us in old ways of thinking and destructive patterns of behavior. And yet – look at what we are sold. By the media, by political parties, by our religious leaders and by our world leaders. We are sold fear. Because fear keeps us in our place and allows them an inroad by which they can assume control of our lives.

As a species, we come by fear honestly. Without fear, we wouldn’t have had the instinct to get away from those truly frightful creatures who wanted to make us their breakfast along with a bagel and latte. And certainly, that fear can still serve us – alerting us to immediate danger and causing fight or flight.

But this constant, nagging fear that we live with on a day to day basis – that doesn’t serve us. Instead it limits the big, grand lives we could truly lead if we stopped being afraid. If the world were to truly end in 2012 (and I’m definitely not saying it’s going to happen) – how would your time the next three years be better served? Hunkered down, fearing the end or going out and living the big, bold and fearless life that you have inside of you? I vote for the latter. Live large. That way, when the end of your life comes, there will be no regrets – only the satisfaction of a life well-lived.