The End of the World?

By Anu Dev

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly -Richard Bach

On Friday the world was supposed to end, at least according to the people who chose to interpret the Mayan Calendar that way.
And practically everyone was talking about the supposed ‘End of the World’. People who believed the world would actually end were agonising about it. And people who felt the need to let the rest of the world know that they didn’t believe the world would end were scoffing about it.
But for those of us, who had an extra week of school at QC, the end of the world wasn’t quite the most important dénouement we were concerned about–the end of school was! So for us the End of the World marked the beginning of the holidays, the fun times, days of sleeping in late (and it rains every morning!!).
And over the years people have been predicting the End of the World at pretty regular intervals and all of them have been disappointed I guess, because the world is still here spinning, orbiting the Sun, doing it’s thing. And we’re all still here. No giant tsunami drowning everyone. No massive volcano spewing lava everywhere. No alien invasion.
Of course since the world is still here that means that I’ll actually have to write my Caribbean Studies essay and I won’t be able to use aliens stealing my homework as an excuse. But still, all of the hype about the world ending makes you think a little bit about things like Bucket Lists. About whether you’ve been living your life the way you should be. Makes you evaluate your life a bit.
Because as some of the modern-day Mayans say, what the calendar really does is herald the end of one era and the start of a new one. New beginnings.
New Years is right around the corner and most people will be making resolutions. But why wait till then? Because how many of us actually keep our New Year’s resolutions? I never do. I think I just come up with stuff because it’s what everyone else does for the New Year! Resolutions could and should be made at anytime of the year, once you’ve realised that there’s something about your life that you need to change. And you don’t have to have some great big epiphany like Homer Simpson did in the Simpson’s Movie (but you know, if that works for you, then go for it).
You could have your little epiphany in the supermarket when you’re shopping and the calories per serving actually hits you and you’ll resolve to eat more healthily.
So if thinking about the world ending made you realise some of the things you regret doing or not doing–the world’s still here. You can fix those things. Repair friendships. Send out the olive branches. It’s the holiday season after all.
The world’s still spinning. Life is going on as usual. And it will be for quite a while. Just do what you have to do.
And while I won’t say we’re ‘survivors’ of the End of the World seeing as there was no danger in the first place-I will say that I’m glad it didn’t end and I’m still here to live another day.