End of Times?

It seems these are trying times. But are they any different than any other time? I went a lookin' just to see. I picked random years just to see if this was really bad. Here is what I came up with.

1989

Communism falls- Republican rejioce... sorta, it happened while they were in power so...

Hurricane Hugo hits (as a category 4 storm) Charleston and is felt all the way to the Upstate.

Tiananmen Square the rise of pro-democracy students, was crushed killing hundreds maybe thousands.

Pan Am Flight 103 (really happened in `88 but I figured since it happened in December to count it) 270 people died.

Exxon Valdez oil spill

The death of Lucille Ball. (Hey I saw it, so I had to put it up here)

Savings and Loan Bailout

1971

Apollo XIV Lands On Moon

Mount Etna Erupts After 43 Years of dormancy

Nixon ends trade embargo with China

Charles Manson and his followers are sentenced to death

Ok I looked enough. Basically there were a few more years I tried and some were pretty good, other were riddled with tragedy and despair. I think just like a friend told me long ago, he said "long time ago we had tornadoes, I could see them bounce from mountain top to mountain top. Today those mountain tops have houses on them, whereas they used to only have trees on them way back when." This was his sage advise to me while I lived in Northeastern Georgia. We are a much more populated planet today, thus when a tragedy happens the propensity is to affect many more people.

So what do I do with all of this? Not much of nothing. You are forced to live in the times you are given. Make the best rather than the worst. Make sure you are right to whatever deity to which you subscribe. Make sure you are doing the right thing whenever possible. But if you can't or won't make sure you go down in infamy. At least that is what I am doing. I don't want to be infamous, so I try to live to the best of my ability. But if that were to change, if I wanted to be remembered for some sort of crazy, hair-brained, ludicrous act... I would make sure it was the craziest, most hair-brained, ludicrous-est act out there, otherwise it would not workout.

That is why I prefer to live on the right side of the law, pay my taxes on time, be a good citizen... even when I know that jerk purposely cut me off going down the Bluffton Parkway. I am loved by important people... my parents, my siblings, my kids, and most importantly (because it is the only one you choose) my wife. I didn't mean to sound like a soliloquy on my final moments or my own epitaph. But you just never know when your time is coming. And when I sit down and really think about it, there are some things I wish I could change, some I would leave as is, some things I wish I would have had the courage to do, and some I wish I would have not. We are who we are. I'm ok with that. End days a coming? Some might say it is true, others not so much... but in the end who cares? What can you do about it? How can you change it? And why would you change it anyway?