Why 12/12/12 is bogus

Today, thousands of Facebook-ers and Twitter-ites are taking to social media to make note of today’s oddity of the calendar: 12/12/12. But even if you believe in the cosmic implications of such incidents, this is not a day to claim.

“Isn’t that fascinating?” asked Hoda Kotb at the start of the fourth hour of NBC’s Today Show after Kathie Lee Gifford announced today’s “special” date.

No, Hota. No, it’s not. (NBC is on in the newsroom throughout the morning, don’t judge me.)

Let’s pretend for a moment that the success of your children or your marriage is somehow linked to the alignment of day, month and year of their birthday or your anniversary. Even if the cosmos smiled on repetitive numbers for some reason, the smiles would not come today.

We’re 2,000 years too late. Today is Dec. 12, 2012. We missed the true 12/12/12.

It seems to be quite an arrogant thing to assume that because we abbreviate the year by dropping the first two digits, that the universe must respect our short hand and shower good fortune on those born on days that align with our abbreviation.

And if we really get technical about it, the date on our calendars is purely arbitrary anyway. It’s 2012 A.D. or C.E. or whatever we’re calling it these days. But the actual year is much higher than that. And at the risk of getting into a Marco Rubio debate about the actual age of the planet, I think we can all agree that it is not the world’s 2012th birthday.

So what that means is that the true 12/12/12 likely came and went without a single person on the planet being aware that it was the twelfth year of our existence.

I realize there are hundreds of people and plenty of them here in Delaware lining up to say “I do” so they can have a memorable anniversary. I’ve also read that there are mothers who have scheduled C-sections today so their children will get a 12/12/12 birthday.

While I wish them all well, I think our success in marriage and in life has a lot more to do with the choices we make every day, not the faux alignment of arbitrary numbers on the calendar.

Don’t get me started on Dec. 21.