“Carpe Diem”

This Latin phrase that the English-speaking population has adopted has popularly taken on the meaning “Seize the Day!” When used, it serves to motivate and inspire people to make the most of every day and use every single second to do something of value, hoping against hope that eventually something monumental will happen.

I find this to sometimes be a valuable and helpful way to view the world that we live in. There is so much to be done, so much to be seen, so much to be “fixed” in our world, that it seems we must never stop going and going and going. Although this is very true, I think that a balance of life is far more important than embracing “Carpe Diem” at its face value, especially because we, as aggressive Americans, have changed the true meaning and translation of the saying.

“Carpe Diem” is actually translated to mean “Pluck the Day,” not to seize it.

Pluck the Day.

Pluck it, like a beautiful flower along your path, and appreciate it. When you view the saying in this way, its meaning changes completely and offers a completely different world view.

Viewed in its true context, "Carpe Diem" literally tells you to stop and smell the flowers.

This is something that we, in the age of entitlement and severe lack of self-restraint, have a hard time grasping, and we are not expected to do so. Especially as young adults under insane amounts of pressure, if we don’t do three activities in separate areas of academia, a varsity sport, three more clubs or extracurriculars, community service, and maintain a good GPA on top of all that, we fail. As simple as that, we fail.

We are not permitted to stop, because if we do, we fall behind, so we don’t do well in classes at the right college we worked so hard to get into, so we don’t get the right job, so we don’t succeed, so we’re poor, so we die alone.

Or so it may seem.

But, hey! I just called to tell you about it, this is by no means true.

Because none of that really matters in the big scheme of things. We were placed on this planet by our gracious and benevolent God, and he doesn’t care if we’re rich or poor, extravagant or plain, busy or resting, even intelligent or not so much.

We should live our lives to glorify Him, not to glorify ourselves and our meaningless worldly possessions and success. And we can’t do this to the fullest if we spend too much time going and going and going trying to get more things done than we ever could to ensure our own momentary success rather than taking time to stop, think, and appreciate the life and the gifts that Jesus died for us to be able to have on Earth and for an eternity afterwards.

I have more often than not found myself running through my busy life idolizing worldly success, stressing over what success looks like on me in college and beyond, comparing grades with my competitive classmates, starving myself to look good for my Spring Break trip to the beach, or doing my mountains of school and extracurricular work every evening.

I am not perfect. Nobody’s perfect. (Hannah Montana told me so, it has to be true.)

But, I’m working on it. I try to stop and spend time with my friends and family who lift me up and inspire me to become a more Godly woman, I try to spend more time in the word and use it to live my life the way Jesus wants me to, and I try to see the beauty in all of God’s creation, even when it seems like some side effects of that creation threaten to drown me.

So, I am all for yelling “Carpe Diem!” at the beginning of every morning. But rather than using it to remind me to seize the day at its face value and cram it full of too many things that will never matter in the long run, I will do so with its true meaning in my heart and on my mind. It will push me to stop and love others, to go out of my way to pick someone up when they’re down, to work on something meaningfully and deeply until it has reached the potential it should, and to appreciate God’s wonder and the miracle of our blessed lives with Him as a part of it.