Distant

What would you do if you got really bad news – that was very delayed?

If you found out that a comet was going to strike the Earth in ten years, how would you react? Ten years is too far out to panic; even if I wanted to, I couldn’t sustain panic for that long. Knowing that the end was coming in ten years makes things seem… well, I don’t know. Giving up seems like the wong answer. I can have a lot of fun in ten years! And heck, I can’t even be certain that I’ll have ten years, comet or no. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, right?

Statistically, even on the day of the comet strike there will be people who die some other way. Certainty about one bad thing doesn’t remove all the other uncertainty about all the other things, good and bad.

And there’s always that outside chance, however small, that the comet misses. Maybe another comet hits it at the last second. Maybe humans invent an anti-comet rocket defense system within ten years. Who knows? It ain’t over ’til it’s over.

Don’t let bad news about a distant day rob you of the close ones.