Pay no attention, I'm not striving for composed today more a ramble out loud. For those wondering 2 out of 3 ground hogs predicted an early spring.
Once each year North Americans huddle around a whole in the ground and wait for a giant rodent to predict for us when we might expect the arrival of spring. The premise being, if the darling pops out of the hole and sees his shadow we can expect 6 more weeks of winter. If he doesn’t see his shadow we get 2 more. Or is it the other way around? I can never keep it straight (Wikipedia says I have it the right way). Some are joking this year that in our part of Canada the unseasonably warm weather and absence of winter will have the furry bugger climbing out with a Margarita and some spf 60. (Now there’s a pest I can content with)
I am intrigued with our gravitation to this animal’s prediction capabilities. Wouldn’t we all like to know what the future has in store for us? Clearly, we would, otherwise we wouldn’t spend so much time on psychics, fortune tellers and facebook “know your death date” apps. The Mayan calendar would have about as much significance as the family budget scribbled on the back of a hydro envelope. Nostradamus would be just another nutcase logging the side effects of late night pizza and too much rum. If I wasn’t curious I wouldn’t check my horoscope every day, open fortune cookies with reverence, check the 14 day forecast or pay attention to the market analysis when it crosses my desk (ok, I don’t do that last one).
We want an edge and wouldn’t that be spectacular. To know that in 6 years you are in for a lotto win fall, that the love of your life is to be encountered on the 3rd Sunday in March 2023 or that next Tuesday you are going to need a sitter because Junior will be home with a cold. It would be simply fabulous to know that you were not going to receive any bad news, health scares, large auto repair bills or layoff notices for a designated period of days, months or years.
Life would be smooth sailing, no bumps in the road, no surprises, easy-peasy, predictable… a safe bet.
What would we do with the information I wonder? If you knew that you weren’t going to be diagnosed with cancer would you smoke? If you knew that you were never going to be involved in an auto accident would you still wear your seatbelt? What about if you knew you had 3 years to live, would you stop putting things off? How about if you knew for fact that you were in for the big lotto win fall, would you still worry about money?
Think of the planning and preparations we could do! The worry that would be lifted if we knew what was in store at any given moment.
If you knew you could not fail what would you try?
What if we all lived like we had a groundhog in our back pocket, our very own inside scoop to the future? What if we lived like we had nothing to worry about and failure was impossible? What if we lived like great things are in store? Maybe we could predict our own futures.
A post full of questions today, that darned little rodent has given me a lot to ponder. One question still perplexes me…
How has the groundhog for hundreds of years known that February 2nd is ‘emerge from your hole day?” and what happens if he forgets to check his calendar are we doomed to seasonal uncertainty?
Happy GroundHog Day!!!!
Michelle
Michelle
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