The end of the world as we know it? Not quite

As of January the first, there is only one year left until I can watch the movie 2012 and laugh, because hopefully the world won’t actually end this year. It would really ruin my plans for graduation, Glastonbury and turning twenty-one.

However, accepting even the slightest possibility that this will be the final year of our planet’s existence, regardless of whether you have any faith in that chance whatsoever, gives us licence to do some crazy things in the next few months.

Take me seriously for a minute. What if the world does end? How would you spend your last night on Earth? Incidentally, that’s a great Noah and the Whale album. But I digress.

If 2012 really does equal the end of the world, under no circumstances will I be sitting any exams this summer. I won’t be going to any lectures, which probably won’t be scheduled anyway, since even the most passionate of lecturers might not choose to spend their final days teaching me the intricacies of credit derivatives and the time inconsistency of monetary policy. At a guess.

I will make no effort to pay off my student loans, in fact I’ll max out my overdraft, buy an Oscar de la Renta ball gown and a plane ticket to Thailand. I’ll rent a VW campervan and drive it to every festival in Europe. I’ll visit the New York Stock Exchange, the Grand Canyon and the Sahara desert. I’ll stand on the equator and probably pay to watch water spin down a plughole. I’ll listen to a lot of music, drink a lot of cocktails and dance with a lot of people. I’ll reread all the Harry Potter books. I’ll buy a yacht and hire a captain for that yacht because if the end is nigh I certainly won’t have time to become an accomplished mariner. We’ll sail the Caribbean and the Great Barrier Reef then island hop along the coast of Croatia.

I will not spend such a high proportion of my time at the library. I might still go there for breakfast, because hash browns are brilliant and it’s hard to refuse a full English for £1.85, but I’ll be on the next flight to Paris in time for lunch and I’ll spend the afternoon strolling down the Champs Elysees and shopping in Chanel rather than on Floor 5. Instead of getting the U1 back to Leamington, I’ll ride the Orient Express from Paris to Prague then head to Russia to buy a furry hat and drink some proper vodka before coming home via the North Pole so I can put my hat to good use while I watch the Northern Lights and pretend I’m on Frozen Planet.

But, as I said, hopefully the world won’t actually end this year.

University is often labelled as some of the best years of our lives, yet we might forgo a large amount of what defines us as students (namely the studying) if we knew our lives were to be cut short before we’re able to reap the benefits of said studying out in the real world. The vast majority of us carry on regardless, because the most plausible scenario is that we will indeed reach that point when our years of learning will pay off.

On the other hand, what if we don’t?

Despite having probably spent too much of my time thinking about this, I still can’t decide whether it would be worse to live as if the world will continue and see it end, or live as if the world will end and see it continue. Damn choices again.

Thankfully, the outcome of this particular choice is quite likely to be irrelevant, since based on the zero per cent success rate of all previous predictions of Armageddon, the Earth should make it to 2013.

We have to prepare for the future because in all likeliness there will be one. We can’t live every day as if it’s our last because it probably won’t be. So we sit our exams, go to our lectures, pay off our loans. We worry about implications and consequences and repercussions. We study for our degrees and apply for jobs; we work hard until we have enough money and time to do everything that would be so urgent if the world was ending.

One day I might even learn how to sail a yacht.