Everyone is individual. Some are more individual than others, especially when they say the world's ending.

I bet you were all as truly amazed as I was at 6:01pm last Saturday, when we all were still alive! Amazingly, despite repeated promises, we were not raptured. Well, I say "amazed", I actually mean you were probably doing exactly what I was doing: something else entirely that was infinitely more interesting, and only noticed the time had passed rapture-o'clock a few hours later. Professional doom-monger Harold Camping had told everyone that, after spending possibly minutes analysing Bible passages, that the rapture was coming on the 21st May at 6pm. Now, despite the fact that I've read War & Peace more times than I've read the Bible, I suspect that Mr Camping didn't put a huge amount of effort into his "analysing", because even I know that there's a passage that specifically states that no-one knows when the rapture is, not even Jesus. But, apparently, a televangelist knows. And I bet that it had nothing to do with promoting his radio station.... whatsoever. Nevertheless, he's decided that he missed a small chunk now (not the aforementioned important clause, however) and it's now been moved back to the 21st October. Of course it has, Harry, course it has.

Now, he's not the first person to try and predict the future and get it so hopelessly wrong. Don't forget those dodgy drawings you made in school of "the future", where we'd be driven around in hover-cars and all wear our tinfoil onesies while walking our pet Martian. Now, it was predicted a good few decades back that very claim; that we'll all wear tinfoil suits, and that fashion will become unisex (I can't remember who claimed that, so feel free to tell me in the comments box below). Now, this has clearly not happened, and I'm pretty glad for it. Can you imagine how sweaty that would be? Shopping would be unbearably boring. It's the same problem with the claim that we'd have all our meals in pill form. Where's the fun in that? I don't just eat to live, I like to barbecue occasionally, and sometimes I've been witnessed stuffing a Big Mac into my mouth like there's no tomorrow. A future of space-suits and balanced "dinner-tabs"? No, thanks. I'll stick in the colourful and tasty past. If you make everything bland and same-same, then it takes away everything that's interesting and dramatic. It would be like watching a car race, and the announcer declaring (before anything has even happened) that the big Ford has the most power and the least weight, and therefore he's the winner. Efficient, but who cares? I like to see the drama, the fun and the chance that the smaller Honda might just be nimble enough to usurp the big boys.


But having said that, all this diversity of character and personality, while making life interesting, can go totally the other way. I bet every single one of you can think of an occasion at work, or when you were at School/College/University and there was that one person who simply had to bring their lives into the room? Do you remember them? They'd constantly demand attention, occasionally making a big point of getting their phone out and screaming "ohmygod!!!" and then surreptitiously looking around to make sure that people noticed? I know some of them today. The problem is that as much as I'd like to think of these people as an amusing distraction, they're not. Instead, they tend to spend all their time on the phone arguing with absolutely anyone, and making out like their minor issue is absolutely the end of the world. This means that not only are you distracted from what you're doing, but you often have to pick up the slack that they've left behind. The really annoying thing about all of this, however, is that despite the fact that whatever the issue is, has caused you to take up double the load and drive you up the wall. The issue in hand tends to be very small in the grand scheme of things. One of these people I know told me, at a volume chosen so that everyone around them could hear, that their life was a "disaster". Apparently, the entry criteria for one's life to be a "disaster" is to have parents that have split up (years ago, incidentally), and a partner that is in trouble with the law. Sorry, but that's not a disaster. She could read her texts, putting her above the billion or so people in the world who can't read or write. She had both breakfast and lunch that day, putting her above 1/6th of the world just for that fact.


Don't worry though. I suspect that the vast majority of you folks are the ones who know well enough to leave your problems at the door when you get to work/College/Uni. Friends will be more than happy to listen to your problems and help you through them. When you have to work, however, unloading all your stresses only serves to frustrate everyone around you. Most of us like attention. Some of us do it by being funny, some of us make a point of publicising something that they're very good at, and some people do it by turning a stubbed toe into World War 3. Guess who's going to get ahead in life?


So next time you hear a televangelist claiming that the world will end .......nnnnnnnnnnnnow! Then just treat it as the amusing spectacle that it is. Or even funnier, you can be grateful that you didn't take him seriously enough to sell all your possessions because you actually believed it. No, seriously, there are some people who now have sold everything and are saying to the news reporters on the fact that Jesus didn't get out the Dyson and vacuum up all his favourite people because a man on the radio said so "I don't know why it didn't happen".


Never a truer word spoken.

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