Calendar Stress

Image from Webexhibits.org

The entire Mayan calendar frenzy has me frustrated. Not the end of the world issue, but rather the fact that people actually created calendars that went that far into the future. If not for the calendar kiosk setting up camp in the walking path between the department stores and food at the mall in December, I doubt I’d have a calendar for the current year, let alone one that organizes time for the next several thousand years.

Calendars cause me stress. Trying to incorporate all of our activities on a calendar is next to impossible. There are meetings, projects, school activities, family activities, social gatherings, enrichment activities, errands, workouts—I have yet to find a manual calendar with blocks big enough for all the day’s activities. Electronic calendars work better, but who has time to input that much information? And once it’s in, who has time to pull up the calendar, find the day and scroll?

As for the world ending because an extended calendar is expiring, I find that hard to wrap my head around. The calendar I grab at that kiosk each year ends on December 31 with regularity. The world has yet to come to an end on January 1. Of course, I realize there is a lot more to everyone’s panic over the end of the Mayan calendar. But now that another Mayan calendar has been unearthed, one that extends far beyond December 2012, I’d like to predict another end—an end to the end-of-the-world speculation. At least until someone comes up with a new, tantalizing, book-selling reason for us to expect an impending apocalypse.

Check out my weekly column in the Courier-Tribune on Saturday, May 26 for more thoughts on the Mayans and their intriguing calendars.