Carpe Diem

As we bring 2005 to a close, many will want to wipe the slate clean and start anew making many New Year resolutions. I have much that I could put on my plate; eating healthier foods, getting more exercise, losing some weight, patching up some differences among family and friends, etc. My list could on with a lot more, but as I contemplated on the past which is irretrievable, I quickly started looking to the future, which might never come and quickly forgot about the present.

I started to think of the term Carpe Diem that was uttered by Robin Williams to his students in the film Dead Poet’s Society. Carpe Diem, seize the day, should be the resolution of all resolutions for me.

It was over two thousand years ago that a Roman poet by the name of Horace penned these words;

Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make most of what you have. It is later than you think.

Over the course of time many people have given us many variations on this theme and I’ll list some just as a matter of example.

And in the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. ~Abraham Lincoln

Why must conversions come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses? ~David Brin

Whether it’s the best of times or worst of times, it’s the only time we’ve got.
~Art Buchwald

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? ~Stephen Levine

Let us endeavor to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. ~Mark Twain

Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. ~Thomas LaMance

There are but three events in a man’s life: birth, life and death. He is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live. ~Jean de la Bruyere

Don’t ever save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is the special occasion. ~Author Unknown

This philosophy is now prevalent in sports. You hear many athletes and coaches stressing that they are going to take it one day at a time or one game at a time and in baseball down to one pitch at a time. Don’t worry that you’ve just missed a pitch and have a strike, just concentrate and get ready because the next pitch is on its way.

Carpe Diem