Carpe diem. Seize the day. Seize the day. Now this is a very old phrase, of course. I’m sure you’ve heard it.
What does this mean? Well, it means that I should document my time, obviously. But gosh, it’s hard to do, isn’t it? Because I wake up and I go to work, and suddenly the day is over. And then the week is over.
And then, of course, the year is over. And then inevitably, my life is over. Because we’ve heard the story, haven’t we? It’s a very short life. And sad girl, the girl in India that I’ve referred to before, he says that he’s officiated at the deaths of thousands of people, and many of them were alive for four or five minutes before they actually died.
They were conscious, truly conscious of being alive for just a limited period of time. But we don’t have to do that, do we? Because in reality, it’s a very, very, very long life. I know this with experience, but we have to slow the time down. We do have to catch all of those moments.
Carpe diem. We have to seize the moment, seize the day. So how do I begin? Well, I think the most effective way for sure is to get my notebook and document that today is the 02/08/2025. Write it down.
And as long as I write down the day and the date, I’m on my way because I must realize that the past that occurred yesterday is now over. There’s nothing I can do with the past. It’s finished. And the future, the future is an illusion. It’s not there yet.
I have great hopes for the future. I’m excited about the future, but all of that is an illusion. You know, what I’ve begun to do in my notebook, this is a stoic suggestion. In my notebook, I’ve begun to write my goals for the day. Now, of course, like most of us, every day I have something to accomplish.
This morning, I had to wake up relatively early. I wanted to clean the house. I wanted to go to the gym, have lunch, come back, do my Mandarin. After that, I went shopping, and then do my blog in the evening. And I accomplished these goals today.
Some days, of course, I don’t accomplish. But regardless if I accomplish or not, it’s over. They’re over. Nothing I can do. So this concept of carpe diem is is extremely important.
I must begin to slow time down. Document the bugs, the bees, the ants, the people, the conversations with people, etcetera, etcetera. Slow it down. And you’ll find when you make a valiant attempt to slow time down, it actually does begin to somewhat stop. Not quite stop, but slow down tremendously.
So where does this phrase carpe diem actually come from? Well, I thought this was kind of interesting. You might enjoy this. The phrase is actually from a poet by the name of Horace. Now he was a poet right at the time at the beginning of the Roman Empire.
Octavian or Augustus Caesar was the emperor, and he was a so called lyric poet. So he wrote about his emotions. And he has a book called The Odes, and this is from book one. And I’d like to read it to you. Right?
Carpe Diem once again.
Ask not (’tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years,
Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers.
Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past,
Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last;
This, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against the shore.
Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; should hope be more?
In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb’d away.
Seize the present; trust tomorrow e’en as little as you may.
So I like this particular piece here except that life is not short. For sure not. So Carpe Diem seize the day, seize the moment.
Catch those times in your life. They’re all around you all the time. You know, life is this wonderful gift. It really is. My body slowly ages.
I really do take time to look at the bugs, the bees, the ants, all the rest of it because I think it is so important to appreciate this gift called my life. So carpe diem seize the day, and you’d know what they say. You know what they say. Critical thinking is necessary, especially if you’re going to seize the day and critical thinking is great. Truly great.
You take care. God bless. Bye bye.