An End to Doomsday Prophecies

The solar eclipse on January 15th brought a flurry of emails warning about the difficulties and disasters that we were going to face on that day, and advising us how to 'stay safe'. Mankind has always had a taste for prophecies of doom; whether it's The Book of Revelation, Y2K or the wildly misunderstood Mayan 'end of the world' in 2012. Why is this so, and what benefits and disadvantages do we incur from paying attention to this kind of thinking?

In the past, humans knew far less about the world than we do now, and for example, big storms, floods and droughts were explained as divine retribution. Now our understanding of climatology can explain these events, and usually predict them.

Yet, for that part of us that is a primitive monkey brain always on the lookout for danger relaxing is seen as irresponsible and potentially dangerous. Therefore, there is the tendency to create danger where none exists in order to satisfy our need 'to do something' and thus feel satisfied that we have successfully overcome yet another obstacle. When events such as eclipses occur, it is seen as prudent 'to take care' just in case something does happen. After all, you never know, there may be some bad planetary influence as a result of an eclipse, even though science cannot account for such a possibility, we think "at least we are better safe than sorry". But are we really safe and not just sorry?

As well as this, there is the tendency to "rubberneck", in other words, slow down and look out of a car window when passing the scene of an accident. We seem to be interested in disaster, maybe because we can feel relieved that it has not happened to us, and if we read the news pages it is often with a kind of morbid fascination.

Putting our attention on prophecies of doom only causes us to not live in the present and become weaker by focusing on future possibilities we don't want and taking our attention away from what we do want. Some would even say that giving attention to these ideas causes them to happen, in other words, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Furthermore, it is impossible to predict many actually dangerous events such as earthquakes or terrorist attacks, and doomsayers do not warn about these kinds of things.

Yes, we have a rational mind that wants to understand and control everything, as it thinks that this is the only way to shield us from harm. And this is simply not only not possible but also not desirable. The discussion of why attempting to control the circumstances, and even people, in our lives is not desirable from an 'enligtenment' point of view could in itself provide an entire future article.

Ultimately, safety is a state mind, and it is best engendered by trusting that life/God/spirit/universe will bring you what you need. If you do not trust, or at least endeavor to develop an attitude of trust, it is difficult for you to become aware of, and therefore experience, the best that life is already offering all of us.

In short, learn to trust more, recognise the signals around you that life is sending, stop worrying about the future and allow more "uncertainty" into your life.