Happy New Year - Dragon vs Mayan Calendar

I find it truly amazing how often life and cosmic law will simply balance itself without a real conscious effort on anyone's part.  On one side of the globe there is a "Dooms Day" mentality with a mass of people believing that 2012 will be the end of mankind and on the other half there are a multitude of people celebrating the first day of The Year Of The Dragon.  That half of the globe is not wringing their hands in worry but embracing a future that will be prosperous and filled with many good things. 

I read that in Asian countries people are excitedly getting married and trying to have babies that will be born under the lucky Dragon's sign at a rate of 20% increase in births this year.  I wonder if the Western World will have a 20% decrease in births since we seem to have gravitated to the theory that the world is going to end in December.  I have studied many intriguing books on the Mayan Calender and ancient history; I started reading them because I like the mystery and intrigue of long forgotten civilizations.  Unfortunately along with the good things I learned from these books I also picked up on the message that they Mayans believed we were shortly running out of time.  When I first started to read them it was about 10 or more years ago so I was fascinated with the year 2012, but unfortunately, as always, time has marched quickly by and here I sit in 2012 thinking about all those predictions. 

As a Christian person I believe that the end will come as a thief in the night and that the Mayan Calendar is intriguing but just like our modern calendars...flip it.  I know that people much more intelligent than I will have a rational of why we can't just flip it, but really?  Wouldn't it be like Billy Bob learning to read and for the first time he sees December 31st on the calendar and freaks out.  Why does it just stop?  Isn't there anymore?  It's the end of the world!  Wait maybe that is why the calendars run into January instead of ending at the actual end of the year, people where panicking every December.

I do think that there is a lot of great information that we can glean from studying ancient civilizations and that there are many predictions that have come true or look like they were true from ancient and modern profits. But first of all for every ancient dooms day prediction there is an equally ancient prediction from other cultures that the world is not going to end.  Secondly many of us in the Western World proudly claim to be Christians but then we will panic and worry about the end of the world when our faith strongly tells us that no human being knows when that time will be.  And lastly even if the Mayan hit it right on the head and the world ends, knowing that will not change anything, what is going to happen will happen.  So I have decided to take the message as:  Live life as if each day is your last, behave in a manner that if it was your last day you wouldn't be scared that you would be sent straight to ... treat the planet as a treasure, and love people as if this was their last day. 

I also have decided (maybe this happens as you get older to everyone) that I will not choose to live in the drama of doom and gloom and worry all the time but I choose to celebrate life.  I may not live in the East and I don't practice the same religions but the Year of the Dragon sounds like a very good year.  I am going to embrace 2012 as a prosperous year and as a year that begins my future.  No looking back, no worrying about the end, just thanking God for my bright future with all the people I love around me.  So here is to the Year of the Dragon, may all of you have a prosperous year and enjoy great wealth and relationships!