Carpe Diem

The phrase ‘carpe diem’ has its origins in a poem by Horace.  The English translation of the passage is “Don't ask (it's forbidden to know) what final fate the gods have; what end the gods will give me or you. Don't play with Babylonian fortune-telling either. It is better to endure whatever will be. Whether Jupiter has allotted to you many more winters or this final one, which even now wears out the Tyrrhenian Sea on the rocks placed opposite — be smart, drink your wine. Scale back your long hopes to a short period. While we speak, envious time will have {already} fled. Seize the day and place no trust in tomorrow.”  

We only have to do two things in life:  We have to die, and we have to live until we die; the rest we make up.  Life is a series of moments, once a moment has past it lives only as memory; we do not know what the future will bring, therefore the only time we can truly make things happen is NOW.

My daughter loves the saying “every day is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present”.  This puts into words an idea that is so obvious to her, that she insisted I make sure to work it in today.  I’m sure that as far as she is concerned, that says it all- quick, to the point, everybody understands, let’s go play outside.  I, however, have another 15 minutes to talk, and I intend to use it.  Every day, every moment IS a gift-  a gift from whoever- God, the universe, the Flying Spaghetti Monster… we should be full of gratitude and thanks for the days that we have, and using the time we have been given doing that which makes us happy and fulfilled; gives us a sense of purpose.

Yet, we don’t.  At least many of us don’t.  It’s so easy to get into a routine of survival. I can’t even count how many mornings I have felt like the guy on the Dunkin’ Donuts commercials from the 80’s- I roll out of bed mumbling “time to make the donuts”, drive to work in a sort of haze, get through the day, go to bed… only to get up the next morning mindlessly repeating “time to make the donuts”.  There have been weeks that I spend looking forward to the weekend, then I’ll spend Saturday trying to let go of the week I just had, then Sunday comes and it’s almost Monday, and then the whole cycle starts over again.  There are so many other things I could be doing, that I’d rather be doing… but I just can’t, I have to work.  When I was growing up my mother always used to say that hardly anyone says on their deathbed, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.”  The older I get, (and the older my kids get), the more I understand the meaning behind this. I once heard of a story about a lady who was celebrating her 100^th or 100^th + birthday, and the interviewer asked some question like: “what’s it like to live so long”?  She responded along the lines of that it is just like living to be 80, or even 70.  She had just as many days with her children when they were young, just as many days with her husband as a newlyweds, just as many young grandchildren’s birthdays- as she would have had she only lived to be 80.  She lamented that it’s just a shame that you don’t get to decide where to put those extra days. 

One day quite a few years ago, I was taking a walk with my father and feeling particularly mournful about a recent death in the family, when we stopped to pick up some pebbles on the side of the path.  He had me look at one of the pebbles; asked about its color, its shape, its texture…. And after about a minute or so, he said “now toss it into those bushes over there”.  I did.  We walked over to the bushes and he asked me to find the pebble again.  I looked for a little bit before I responded that there was just no way I could find the same pebble.  He explained to me how that pebble was like a minute of life. You can spend the minute angry, or regretful, or mourning, or happy,etc… but no matter how you spend it, once it is gone, you can look and you can look, but you will never get it back.  So don’t throw it away.  Absorb every aspect of that pebble (or minute), its color, its shape, its texture.

Just as the purpose of a dance is not to get to one point on the dance floor, it is to enjoy the dance, so is the purpose of life.  Spending days doing what we “have” to do and not what we love to do is just survival.  Doing what you are “supposed” to do, and not what makes you feel alive is just survival.  What is the point of survival if you don’t feel alive?

There’s this great story that I heard while studying the Tao.  “A small kitten had just returned from cat philosophy school. He was running around in circles, trying to catch his tail. A seasoned old alley cat, asked the kitten what he was doing.
"I have learnt that happiness is in the tip of your tail, and I am trying to catch mine, so that I will always be happy."
The old Alley cat replied: "You have learnt well. I never received a fancy education, but I too have heard that happiness is in the tip of my tail. What I have also discovered is that if you forget about trying to catch it, it will follow you wherever you go."

I believe that we are meant to do that which makes us happy.  I think that if you “follow your bliss”, the universe will present the opportunities to you. If you are perceptive to them and willing to take advantage of them, more will come to you.  You can’t force opportunities to happen- not that I’m saying it’s not good to be motivated or ambitious, but everything happens when it is time. For anyone who doubts this fact, think about that you have already taken advantage of the natural flow of the universe to provide opportunities.  You have already seized the day- even if you think you have missed every opportunity since- it happened the day you were born.  It was time, and you entered this world.  Can you imagine anything that would have been easier to talk yourself out of? Talk about a life-changing event! But you didn’t even think, there wasn’t an option-it was time and you did it, and you did it with flair! The difference between that day and any since is that you have somehow convinced yourself that you can make better judgments about your life than Nature can.  You formed from a cluster of cells into a human being, and many of us said “thanks, God (or whatever you want to call this life force), I’ve got it from here!”

I don’t know if life presents a limited number of opportunities, but I do believe that if you keep saying “no” (or ‘not right now’) to the opportunities presented, they will cease, or you learn to ignore them; to stop recognizing them.

Count Leo Tolstoy writes in the Death of Ivan Ilyich of a man who lives his life hating everything about it; a truly miserable man.    The end is near when he suddenly has the thought, “What if my entire life, … simply was not the real thing?”  Tolstoy writes: It occurred to him that those scarcely perceptible impulses of his to protest what people of high rank considered good, vague impulses which he had always suppressed, might have been precisely what mattered, and all the rest not been the real thing.  His official duties, his manner of life,… the values adhered to by people in society and in his profession—all these might not have been the real thing.  He tried to come up with a defense of these things and suddenly became aware of the insubstantiality of them all.  And there was nothing left to defend.
Ivan realizes that he is “taking leave of life with the awareness that (he) squandered all (he) was given, (with) no possibility of rectifying matters.”

Don’t get to the end and wonder “what if?”  In a book by Richard Bach one of the characters ponders the thought, “I have given my life to become the person that I am today; was it worth it?”  Seize the day.  Take advantages of the opportunities life presents you, no matter what disguises they may wear.  Not all opportunities present themselves as joyous occasions.  Many are cloaked in pain, confusion, or uncertainty.  Many people report that out of their experiences of the greatest pain, come their deepest revelations and understandings.  If you go numb and merely survive every experience of your life, you miss the opportunity to grow.  You must be fully present for every experience in order to learn the lesson, to make contact with the part of yourself that needs that experience in order to become more than you are. 

Despite our varying beliefs of what lies beyond this life, we don’t know.  We don’t know if we will have the chance to do it again, to make things right ‘next time’.  We must act on the assumption that this life is not a rehearsal.

Some Asian philosophies illustrate life as not a circle but as a spiral.  Things come back around but slightly differently. There may be different players, but the script is still the same.  Most of you know what I’m talking about- how many times have you found yourself in a situation thinking “how did I get back here?”  Sometimes it’s financial, sometimes emotional… Life has a way of repeating the lessons until you really “get” it.  Taking advantage of opportunities to learn now, helps to ensure a more desirable outcome when the situation comes around again (and again).  Who cares if you “blow it” this time through? Chances are good that you will get another chance to try it again.  So go for it! Give it your all.  The problems arise when you don’t pay enough attention to change your part in the script; you just keep plugging ahead, keep surviving.  THAT is failure- not learning from your experiences.

Remember, it’s not important if you fall or not, what is important is if you get back up, and how quickly.

 In the movie “Big Fish”, one of the characters is given the opportunity to see his death when he is a child.  Once he knows how his end will come, he lives his life taking advantage of every opportunity life gives him, and gives it all he’s got.  He knows how his story ends and “this” (whatever he’s doing at the time) is not it.  He finds incredible freedom and strength in knowing that he can’t fail.

Now, I’m going to ask you a question you may have heard before.  You don’t need to answer out loud, but I want you to answer it. Have a clear answer in your head.  Close your eyes if you need to, take a deep breath, whatever helps you to focus.:
What would you do…. if you knew ….you absolutely could not fail?

Now, listen to me carefully. 
You cannot fail.

The difference between ‘success’ and ‘failure’ lies within yourself, because failure and success are personal judgments.  Any mother who has received a fistful of bright yellow dandelions can attest to the fact that the difference between a weed and a flower is a judgment, a label.  YOU are the one who decides what “success” is for you.  Nobody else.  You.

I know it is so cliché, but truly the only way to fail is never to try.    If you try, if you make an attempt, you ALWAYS produce a result.  At times, the result may be that you learned how NOT to do something.  Thomas Edison is quoted as having said “Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.” “I haven’t failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that did not work.”  Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind was rejected by seven publishers before someone said yes; R.H. Macy “failed” numerous times before his New York store succeeded; and more than three hundred banks rejected Walt Disney’s application before one finally agreed to grant him a loan to build Disneyland.  Every perceived failure brings us closer to success; sometimes it’s the last key on the ring that opens the door.

Edison also said that “If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”Let’s start astounding!  The universe is waiting!

Don’t know where to start?  You don’t have to do all of the big stuff right away, but you do have to do something, today- not someday, today.
Want to learn to meditate? Start with thirty seconds today, and every day. 
Would you like to start exercising every day, someday?  Start with one sit-up today, every day, and see how it evolves.
Do you have bigger aspirations?  How about eliminating world hunger?  Make a sandwich and hand it to a hungry person today. 
Before you talk yourself into waiting for another day to do something because all you can do today is just too small and insignificant, remember the story of a grandfather walking with his grandson on the beach.  The grandfather was picking up sand dollars and throwing them back into the ocean. The grandson asked, “Why do you bother, grandpa?  There must be thousands of them on the beach; you can’t possibly make a difference”.  The grandfather replied, as he threw another out into the ocean, “made a difference to that one.”
Years ago, a reporter went to Hannibal, Missouri and interviewed some childhood friends of Samuel Clemmons – who we also of course know as Mark Twain.  One of the friends said “Shucks, I knew all the same stories ol’ Sam did, he just wrote ‘em down!”. 
Be the one that “writes ‘em down”.  And remember, there’s no time like the present to do it.

As Wayne Dyer says, “don’t die with your music still in you”.  No matter who you are, no matter how old, no matter what you do right now, life is calling to you.  Come, LIVE.   Do something meaningful to you. Do something that matters.  Don’t let what others define as success or failure decide how you will live your life.  Seize the day, every day.  Remember, what you do is important, because you are exchanging a part of your life to do it.

Originally delivered ~2009 at the Unitarian Fellowship of Lawrence