Alexandersmap

    Tag: Carpe Diem

    • On Seizing the Day

      “Let us therefore set out whole-heartedly, leaving aside our many distractions and exert ourselves in this single purpose, before we realize too late the swift and unstoppable flight of time and are left behind. As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees.” Seneca, Moral Letters

      If nothing else comes of this time, I’ve had significantly more time with 2/3 of the family. Sure, I’ve knocked off many of the nagging renovation projects this house I live in needed, but more importantly the family time has been a net positive. Tim Ferriss throws out a statistic that says 90% of the time you spend with your parents is used by the time you finish high school. My experience is that he’s half right in that one. One parent has been an active participant, one has accumulated other priorities and drifted away. Such is life. And now as a parent yourself you fully understand the reality of parenthood. So how much of that math do you apply to your own children? They don’t fly if you hold them tight, but they may flounder if you don’t give them the time they need. Balance is the key, Grasshopper.

      I’ve visited the Seneca quote a few times before in this blog. It’s a recurring theme, if you will. Carpe Diem! Memento Mori! I should read the Seneca quote every day until it’s burned into my brain, for even though I try to live it, sometimes life stirs the pot enough that you forget that this moment is all we’ve got. How cliché… and how absolutely on point. If COVID-19 isn’t a reminder of that, what is? How many healthcare workers, seeing so much death in such a compressed amount of time, have reminded us to tell our loved ones how much they mean to us now, not tomorrow – as if that’s guaranteed to us? How many listen, I wonder?

      This week marked 50 years since the Apollo 13 mission went from routine to a stunning rescue mission. I watched the Tom Hanks film again to honor the moment. What struck me was how routine the miraculous had become. You’re flying to the moon in a ship made of foil? Who cares? We’ve seen that show already. Until it became a struggle for life and death anyway. Then it became must see TV. How quickly the extraordinary becomes routine. Waking up today was extraordinary. What a gift! Billions before us would give anything for another day above ground. And what do we do with it? Binge watch Netflix? The virus is horrific, the collective pause it offers is a gift. Just as this day is. Take it for granted or embrace the possibilities it offers? There’s our choice.

      Seizing the day means more than trying to create a highlight reel of moments, it’s being present in the moment. Moments as mundane as washing dishes, and feeling the tactile experience and wonder of hot water and soap flowing over your hands and disappearing down a drain. Walking outside barefoot and feeling the coolness or warmth of the earth radiating through your feet. Watching larger birds flap about on the bluebird feeder seeing the worms inside and trying to find a way inside. Noting the incremental progress of the sunrise (or sunset if you will) as the earth tilts. Listening to a loved one as they move about in a quiet house and the gratitude of their presence in your life this day. All miraculous parts of this incredible life we’re given. Don’t let the routine lull you to sleep again. Be awake and alive while you’re here! We must seize what flees. Carpe Diem.

    • TGI… F?

      Friday’s feel a bit different when your entire week is spent working from home… And the weekend before that… And this coming weekend too. Indeed, Saturday and Sunday feel different, and so does Monday. There’s a cadence to a normal week that’s been disrupted for most everyone, but it’s all kind of lumped together now like jambalaya. Here we are in the new world.

      You could say TGI… Not On A Ventilator or TGI… Still Employed or TGI… Still Like My Family or TGI.. Still Have Toilet Paper right about now and mean it more than TGIF. So sure, the world is still upside down on this next Friday in March, but it could be worse. And someday we’ll all have a collective memory of this time that we’ll shake our head in wonder at. The world against the virus; our collective enemy.

      The work week, like perceived scarcity, can bring out the worst in some people. It’s not always easy living in a dog-eat-dog world, so it’s understandable when people celebrate the end of that crazy week and the chance to let loose a bit. But the bars are closed, the restaurants are doing take-out, every sport is shuttered and theaters sit dark and empty. So where do you let loose anyway, if you’re so inclined?

      Such is the state of the pandemic world. Society pauses to flatten the curve, the economy needs its own ventilator and Friday seems like Tuesday. But what of it? TGIF is a state of mind anyway, just like the Monday Blues is. Celebrate waking up to another day and don’t worry about the calendar. TGI… Alive And Healthy. Memento Mori and Carpe Diem.

    • Now… or Never

      Reading has a way of pulling material out for us.  I fully intended to write about the Battle of Lake Erie today, but it will have to wait just a bit longer.  Instead I came across this poem last night while thinning out the bookshelves.  I have books stacked on books, and it’s time to clean out a bunch of them.  Fall yard sale or donate to a library or sell to a used bookstore?  Their fate is to be determined.  But back to that poem.  It speaks of young lust to be sure, but also calls out across the centuries, warning us to get on with it already (so to speak), for time is short:

      “Had we but world enough, and time,
      This coyness, lady, were no crime.
      We would sit down and think which way
      To walk, and pass our long love’s day…

      But at my back I always hear
      Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
      And yonder all before us lie
      Deserts of vast eternity.
      Thy beauty shall no more be found,
      Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
      My echoing song; then worms shall try
      That long preserv’d virginity,
      And your quaint honour turn to dust,
      And into ashes all my lust.
      The grave’s a fine and private place,
      But none I think do there embrace.”

      – Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress

      Who doesn’t smile at the game old Andrew was playing here?  That the game was played in the 1650’s, but published posthumously, as if our hero were reaching out from the grave to remind us that time is short, and to do what we must do….  now.  Carpe Diem.  Marvell was apparently a real player, and I spent some time getting acquainted with a few of his poems this morning before writing.  I may revisit his work sometime, but I can’t ignore the call.  I dance with a lot of ghosts after all, and so should everyone.  They know things we don’t yet know.  History speaks, and so does literature.

      Interestingly, the first time I read the first and last two lines of the poem wasn’t in some English class, but in a business book written by Felix Dennis called How to Get Rich.  I’d picked up his book back in 2006 at the height of my lust for business success.  Back when I read it the first time I ignored the urgency of his call.  I’m less inclined to do so now.  Dennis died in 2014, joining Marvell in calling out from the grave.  Seize the day!

      The grave’s a fine and private place,
      But none I think do there embrace.”

       

    • The Endpoints of the Day

      Winning the day starts with the morning. I’m pretty good with the morning now, but there are plenty of mornings where the evening gets in the way. Eat too much, stay up to late, have a few drinks and the morning routine is more challenging. So this ridiculously easy habit stack I have has bailed me out on a few mornings where I wasn’t feeling up to the challenge but did it anyway. If the morning is the angel on one shoulder, the evening can be the devil on the other; full of all kinds of triggers and temptations. Glass of wine? Why not? Bread with dinner? Why not?  I’ve been good today… Slippery slope.

      The morning represents a new hope for the day ahead.  You’ve got your whole day ahead of you!  So very much you can do today!  The evening has its own pleasures of course, but ultimately you’re left with a feeling that I’ve accomplished all I can today or I haven’t done what I needed to do today.  Either way it’s an end point.  Last call.  Give me beginnings.

      “We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass that confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant morning all men’s sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to vice…. bless the new day, feel the spring influence with the innocence of infancy, and all… faults are forgotten.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Thoreau pleads with us to live in the moment, but also to bless the new day and forget the past.  Sign me up…

      Also on the morning habit stack is reading, and this morning’s Daily Stoic entry made me chuckle after writing the title of this post: Carpe Diem. It featured this gem of a quote:

      “Let us therefore set out whole-heartedly, leaving aside our many distractions and exert ourselves in this single purpose, before we realize too late the swift and unstoppable flight of time and are left behind. As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession. We must seize what flees.” – Seneca, Moral Letters

      Seize what flees.  No matter the time.  This day…  this moment.