Grab the Wheel
[3]You ever feel like like sometimes that life is no different than a Greyhound bus and your only purpose is to sit back with your pillow and your magazines and your popcorn and ride along a predetermined path until the bus comes to a rest stop? Does your bus ever hit a pothole or take a wrong turn and you feel like maybe the driver isn't as experienced as his or her badge and glossy certificate hanging next to them at the front of the bus may suggest. You ever think to yourself that maybe if you were driving that you can at least be responsible for your own fate and the safety of those you love. Maybe its time you do just that.
This weekend I watched way too many shows and programs all talking about the same thing, "The end is near." The one on the history channel kept references the Sybilline prophecy's and the Aztec Calendar and polar shifts and all that good stuff. It was talking about the world ending in 2012. I thought it was interesting. My daughter on the other hand (who mind you is only 8 years old) almost had a freaking nervous breakdown. I had forgotten that I had lived my life and experienced a few things. She was concerned for her future. Her initial reaction was a somber whimpering which at first I thought was a joke and then she became downright manic. She claimed she had a stomach ache and she was just bawling her eyes out 8 minutes after bedtime.
I grew up being taught not to be afraid of anything and so I'm not. My daughter on the other hand is afraid of almost everything (she can't even handle a simple rainstorm without storming her own self). I've come to accept that there are just some things that I have no control over and the things that I do have control over I have a choice whether I should devote my energy to them or not. I tried to explain to her that the people on T.V. only "think" the world is gonna end then but the only one who really knows is god. I didn't make any false promises like, "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you," or "Don't worry, I'll protect you," because who knows what might happen. But it did make me think. If the world does come to an end. If the people on the news tell us one day that we have to face an inevitable fate in the form of an uncontrollable asteroid headed in our direction or the rising waters flooding our coastlines or an unnameable viral strain that kills in less than 24 hours then I'm perfectly ok with that because I know there is nothing I can do about it. But if the world comes to and because of nuclear war or radioactive garbage or some other "Man Made" insanity then I'll definitely be haunting this rock until I find out who did it.
It is a bit scary knowing that only so much of our fate is under our control. My daughter eventually went to sleep and stopped crying. After about an hour of the show Life After Humans I did the same. I know that everything will be alright even if it isn't. If the end is near then I don't think its the ultimate end but more like pressing reset on my Playstaion console. Sometimes it has to be done. What do you think?
