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Life is always uncertain, so live, love every moment

— If you’re reading this, then the great Mayan Calendar Take Out did not happen and we’re all still here.

Yes, the bills are still due (the Christmas shopping bills will soon be due). Yes, chances are we’ll be subjected to an incessant clatter of loud media ads for weight loss programs and income tax refund anticipation loans. Yes, it’s likely that seasonal affective disorder will threaten while the white sales and prom dress shopping season rage. It’s also likely that Facebook will still keep changing all its stuff, and the scare tactics and hacking will most likely continue.

Assuming “the end” won’t have punked us all by coming the day after or won’t be along yet for a while - we’ll probably see more of those Worldwide Disaster sci-fi movies come down the pike.

No doubt more than a few of us went about our Friday more concerned about that fiscal-cliff business than the world coming to a screeching halt. There were probably a healthy number of us hoping that Dec. 21 would be the day for a figurative, mass Beaming Up by Scotty ... so we could escape any number of problems, including and especially those aforementioned bills.

There may be those of you who have followed in the footsteps of history, stopping all regular activity and holing up somewhere to await the purported end of the world. As chronicled on History Channel specials, you’ve even built/bought elaborate, expensive bunkers, stockpiled food and water, and created survivalist communities in case of apocalypse.

But chances are, most of you fell into the vast category of people who went right on planning for beyond Dec. 21. Judging from the posts I saw on Facebook, a buuunch of you TV watchers are awaiting the spring premiere of the ABC series Scandal. (Me? I’m lying in wait for the spring premiere of NBC’s Revolution.)

On a really sad note, the end of life in this world came before the so-called Mayan Calendar ending for all too many of our brethren. We’re all still reeling from the Dec. 14 mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and, only days before that, the mall shooting near Portland, Ore. Countless others have died before their time this year, period.

If the bell has not yet tolled for us, the best thing we can do is live. As we live, let us count our blessings.

As so many suggested on Facebook the day of the Sandy Hook shootings, let us hug our children.

Let us choose to rejoice in the small but meaningful landmarks of our lives, rather than just schlepping through the day griping about weather, traffic, work, in-laws.

Let us choose our battles more wisely and walk away rather than engage in arguments and insist on the last word.

Let us read, reread and heed the message of love in 1 Corinthians 13 in the New Testament, no matter what our faith or whether we’re of any faith.

If someone is hurting or going through calamity, let us carefully consider whether it’s in our power, or part of our life assignment, to help that person. If it is, let us act without procrastination or excuses.

Let us commit those random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty. We all could sure use a few.

Let us pay it forward when someone does us a good deed.

Let us be courteous drivers, moviegoers, library patrons, Apple products purchasers and - please - public restroom users.

Let us have a sense of humor. Heck, let us make ourselves and/or others laugh by doing the more harmless and least annoying of those goofy things the e-mail forward tells us to “do at Wal-Mart when you’re bored.” (Well, I just looked through one list. They’re all considerably annoying. Never mind. Just go engage in something harmlessly silly.)

Bottom line: We don’t know when our Last Day will be. Therefore, let us live each day as though it were our last.

E-mail lives on:

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Style, Pages 51 on 12/23/2012

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