IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

Not to get all Pollyanna on you, but I'm still enough of a romantic to view a brand new year as full of new possibilities. 2012 certainly got off to a promising start here in Santa Cruz; it was a warm, sunny 74 degrees when Art Boy and I took a walk around the harbor about 11:30 in the morning on New Year's Day. Freakish, yes, but not unpleasant.

Last Year about this time, I wrote a column in Good Times about my personal mantra for the then-new year, a single-word talisman to express my attitude for the future. Then, I chose the word "Life."

If I were taking this challenge again this year, I'd need more words. My mantra for this year is: If Not Now, When?

It's not just about getting older. (Although as Art Boy charitably points out, we're not getting any younger.) But at some point, you realize the ugly rumor may be true that time is not, in fact, infinite. And this is before factoring in the Mayan Calendar Theory, which says the year 2012 may be the end of life as we know it.

(Nobody knows why. Maybe it was a Mayan clerical error. Maybe modern doomsayers have no idea how to interpret the data. Maybe the Mayans somehow got a look at this year's crop of Republican Presidential hopefuls.)

The point is, if there are any things you really need to accomplish, what are you waiting for? Do them now. You know the kinds of things—cleaning out the clutter from one's house/life/psyche. Finishing (or even starting) that novel, art project, or other magnum opus. Climbing that mountain, taking that journey, solving that problem, doing whatever you need to do to make the life you have the one you want to live.

There's no time like the present, as the saying goes; for all we know, there's no time BUT the present. Mayans or not, it's always a good time to start making every nanosecond count. If not now, when?

(Btw, remember that awful disaster movie, 2012, that came out a couple of years ago? The promotional synopsis for it always cracked me up. Something like, "After the end of the world, a few survivors struggle to (do something or other)..." What survivors? It's the end of the world; all that comes "after" is space dust.)

(Top: Aztec adaptation of the Mayan calendar, as seen online at WebExhibits.)