As the Mayan calendar ends in a mere 11 days, surely predicting the apocalypse, it makes me wonder about human’s obsession with the end of the world.

The Dec. 21 doomsday is not the first apocalypse prediction that has been brought to the world’s attention.

Harold Camping, former Christian radio host of Family Radio, led thousands of people to believe May 21, 2011, and later Oct. 21, 2011, would be the day when Christians would make their way to heaven, while sinners would stay on earth and suffer various natural disasters until the earth literally burned up.

Family Radio, based out of Oakland, Calif., spent millions of dollars on billboards and messages on RVs that spread the word about the end of the world.

According to ABC News, the radio station caused people to “drain their personal savings” to warn people about their doom.

Surely that amount of money was not spent based solely upon an inkling that the world may end.Camping and his cohorts were sure.

We look to everything to try and predict when our days on earth will cease. There’s the Bible, which Camping’s predictions were based upon, technology and the inventions of ancient civilizations.

Is it the fascination of what will come after us?

The dinosaurs’ plight millions of years ago eventually were only a step in the events that led to our existence.

Will we end in a way similar to the dinosaurs, with an asteroid as our impending doom? And what will be left on earth to evolve into the next form of life?

Or are we bent so much on the meaning of life that we cannot help to think it is an insignificant thing that will one day end as fast as it started?

Only when I was younger did I believe the prediction of the end of the world based on the Mayan calendar had some truth to it.

Yet, the premise for the Dec. 21 apocalypse is perplexing.

That is to say, I do not understand how throughout the span of my life I have consistently been reminded of this doomsday, which has essentially zero basis in fact.

The Mayan’s Long Count calendar is based on 13 baktuns, periods of approximately 394 years.

The 13th baktun, a number sacred for the Mayans, ends on Dec. 21. on the Gregorian  calendar.  

Obviously this is proficient grounds for doomsday.

Perhaps since the Mayans were advanced in math and astronomy for their time (approximately 300 to 900 A.D.) they would have some reason for ending their calendar besides the fact that it’s difficult to make a calendar last forever.

Certain people will stack up on supplies Dec. 20 and spend the next day in nervous anticipation of the doom they have convinced themselves will surely come.

But just as the Y2K scare left the technological world scar-free, we will all wake up on Dec. 22 just as we have every other day of our lives.

Soon there will be some other doomsday prediction that will pop up and start this cycle again.

Perhaps the person who crafts the Gregorian calendar quits and makes no more — that would surely signal the end.

With the next doomsday idea, more apocalyptic movies like “2012” will be released, and we will still wonder how our ultimate fate will come.

But really, there is no sense wasting time worrying about doomsday or constantly using “YOLO” to justify your crazy actions.

Live your life as if you have all the time in the world. After all, the sun doesn’t burn out for another few billion years.

We’ve got a lot to make of our lives and a long time to do it. So kiss the Mayan calendar goodbye and keep on livin’.

Kirsten is a sophomore in Media. She can be reached at [email protected].