Niburu in 2012?

Alas, my expressed interest in astronomy is attracting some interesting questions. I was recently asked if I have seen "the approaching Niburu". The back-story: An archeologist, Zecharia Sitchin, wrote a book in 1976 called "The Twelfth Planet". Some have called it "Planet X", others have named it "Niburu" or "Nibiru". When the dwarf planet Sedna was discovered in 2003, some were sure it was the "fabled" Niburu. Observations have shown that Sedna is located well beyond the orbit of Pluto in a highly elliptical orbit -- about 75 times the distance from the earth to the Sun (that distance is known to astronomers as 1 Astronomical Unit or AU) at its closest approach and 975 AU at its farthest (it's about 90 AU from the Sun presently). Sedna has what is estimated to be a 10,500-12,000 earth-year orbit around the Sun. 


Another group of people are convinced that the imaginary Niburu is not the real Sedna, but is instead another planetoid or larger planet now on its way into the inner solar system, presently located at about the orbit of Saturn. The "planetary cataclysmists" would like to have us believe that Niburu's arrival in the inner solar system will make its closest approach to Earth on Dec 21, 2012. 


(Are we going to have to arrive at January, 2013, before people start to realize that the Mayans didn't continue their calendar past the end of their calculated epoch because they didn't yet have anything to say about the time that followed? Personally, I don't need a calendar showing a particular date unless I have something I want to plan for during that period. I'm just sayin'......) 


(For more "information" on Niburu, see http://www.logical2012.info/nibiru_p3.htm.)


Having just read the above website, my reaction is "Whew!" Remember the cartoon illustration of the bearded, scruffy-looking fellow carrying a sandwich board that said, "The end is near", with a piano shown in mid-air over his head? That was the image that came to mind as I read the above website.


How much mental effort do we waste entertaining doomsday scenarios such as the impending doom of 2012?  This Niburu story, of course, is an example some of us look at in curious amazement. But why should we be surprised that this 2012 doomsday scenario is a popular idea? A poll of Americans taken by CBS in 2004 showed that fully 55% believed that God created people in their present form as it is written in the Bible. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main657083.shtml)


But here's a question that hits closer to home: How much mental effort do YOU waste entertaining doomsday scenarios in YOUR life? A related question: How much mental energy do you drain away in the "coulda', woulda', shoulda's"?


I recently ran across the definition of happiness as the state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. When we are occupied with the doomsday scenarios and the less obviously distracting "coulda', woulda', shoulda's", we waste our mental energy that could alternatively be focused on the emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Those distractions, which most of us experience to one degree or another, rob us of that potential increment of happiness that could have been experienced in that otherwise wasted moment. (this paragraph deserves elaboration -- a topic for a future blog??).


Know you're blessed, all the time.