If you’re reading this…yippee: the world hasn’t ended.

If you’re reading this, breathe a big sigh of relief. I’ve got some excellent news for you:

The world didn’t end today.

At least not as of yet.

But I guess there’s time.

After all, there’s so many predictors that today’s the day the jig is up.

It’s the end of the Mayan long-form calendar, and if the Mayans weren’t preparing to get up and make breakfast and do the laundry on December 22, 2012, maybe we shouldn’t be, either. (What did the Mayans know, and when did they know it?)

Then there’s the worry that planet earth is going to be sucked into a black hole, which actually might be cool to experience, if you lived to tell the tale. Which you probably wouldn’t. Or we could have a cataclysmic run-in with the planet Nibiru.

And then there’s the web site devoted to the belief that today begins World War III, in which Russia and a bunch of bad-actors in the Mideast take on Europe. Then the real hellzaoppin’ breaks out, with mobs attacking the Vatican, the Pope fleeing, David Cameron decamping to the US, Paris burning, civil war in the US (bad timing on David Cameron’s part), chemical and nuclear warfare, and a tsunami-triggering comet thrown in for good measure. Pick your poison. (Source: December212012.com)

We dodged a doomsday biggie in May 2011, when it was predicted that there’d be a major, mother of all earthquakes earthquakes, followed by hell on earth for a few months, and then complete oblivion on October 21st. Pink Slip was pretty sure that this wasn’t going to happen, and that we’d live to blog another day. Which, as it happened, is how it turned out.

I’ll go out on a limb again here: World end’s today? Ain’t going to happen.

Not that anyone’d be around to say ‘I told you so’ if, in fact, it’s all over now, baby blue.

And I’m in good company.

NASA saying no way the world is ending today, bang or whimper.

And the Vatican’s top astronomer – the Vatican has multiple astronomers???? -  is also urging calm:

The Rev. Jose Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory, wrote in Wednesday’s Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that ‘‘it’s not even worth discussing’’ doomsday scenarios based on the Mayan calendar that are flooding the Internet ahead of the purported Dec. 21 apocalypse. (Source: Boston.com)

Not all the predictions for December 21, 2012, are dire. Some New Agers believe something along the lines of “This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.”

As long as all the men don’t start wearing ponytails, and the only food is tofu, I’m down with this:

Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more need for superstition
All your living dreams are visions
Mystic crystal revelations
And the mind's true liberation.

Other than that mystic crystal revelation – huh? – and possibly the bit about “all your living dreams are visions”, which I don’t quite get, either, what’s not to like?

Anyway, the world will NOT end today.

You heard it here!