“Carpe diem.” It’s the battle cry of motivational posters, Pinterest boards, and that one friend who just declared bankruptcy for the third time.
It’s one of the oldest philosophical slogans around, first stated by Horace in 23 BCE. The poem he wrote it in, “Ode XI”, is only eight lines long but, hoo boy, has it had legs. Look around and you still see versions of it everywhere – from “Dead Poets Society” to Nike (“Just Do It”), to #YOLO.
But honestly: Seize the day? Buddy, I’m usually just trying to cope with the day. Can’t we just ask the day how it’s doing first? Maybe “Nudge the day,” or “Nod at the day politely”?
Jokes aside – this is the problem. We don’t really know what the phrase means.
It’s so overused it’s become the “live, laugh, love” of motivational slogans, right up there with “dance like no one’s watching” and “everything happens for a reason.” This is a phrase that sounds great but has also inspired every midlife crisis involving a sports car or a questionable tattoo.
So what does it really mean? That’s up to you. But you’re going to get some options. We’re going to look at five different interpretations of this motto and see how they can help us live better lives.
We’ll get insight from Roman Krznaric’s book, “Carpe Diem: Seizing the Day in a Distracted World.”
Alright, let’s get seizing…
1) “Live This Day As If It Were Your Last”
What a terrifying, maniacal slogan to live by. It’s like a corporate wellness email written by a death-obsessed cult leader. Every “last day” would involve liver failure, bankruptcy, and Googling “how to buy a tiger on Craigslist.”
Now some people will say, “That’s not what the phrase means, Eric.” But it is how it’s often used. Carpe diem as get-out-of-jail-free card for impulsive behavior. “I maxed out my credit card, but carpe diem, am I right?” No, you’re wrong. Your credit score is crying. This version of carpe diem sounds like how an ancient Roman dude would justify really bad decisions. Because while life’s short, it’s not that short.
But if we dial the intensity down a little, there is value here. While throwing your entire life into a hedonistic spiral is a surefire way to end up at rock bottom, every now and then, we need a little sprinkle of that chaos.
Somewhere along the way, life turned into this endless to-do list where “joy” ranks somewhere between “call Comcast about that bill” and “figure out why your fridge is making that noise.”
Yes, we should be responsible and make good decisions and all that. But sometimes we should not be that responsible. Eat the dessert, go to the concert, buy the plane ticket. This carpe diem isn’t truly about living every day like it’s your last — but about remembering that, once in a while, you should choose the fun thing.
Nobody’s going to hand you joy. Nobody’s going to ring your doorbell and say, “Congratulations! You’ve been selected to have a good time today. Please follow me to the rollercoaster and margarita station.” If we don’t give ourselves permission to step off the treadmill and do something stupidly wonderful now and then, we’re going to look back and wonder why we didn’t seize a few more ridiculous, glorious, indulgent days when we had the chance.
Long-term hedonism? Disaster.
But micro hedonism? A life saver.
(To learn the four rituals that will make you happy all the time, click here.)
Okay, one down. Let’s look at another interpretation that’s slightly less extreme but has a similar vibe…
2) “Live This Year As If It Were Your Last”
The best part of living like you’ve got a year? You get to take advantage of life without burning everything to the ground. You’ve got time to be spontaneous and thoughtful. You’ve got urgency without panic.
With a year, you stop waiting for the “right moment” to really live. Because, let’s be honest, none of us are getting that perfect time where everything lines up and life just makes sense. It’s not happening. When you’ve got a year, you stop thinking, “Maybe next year will be different” and start realizing that this is the year. This is the life. There will be no mystical “better time.”
And it’s also where gratitude comes in. With a year left, you start noticing things. You start realizing that your life’s pretty good in ways you’ve been too busy or too annoyed to appreciate. We forget to appreciate those things because we’re so busy worrying about the next thing, or the thing after that.
With a year, you’re not acting impulsively – but you know there’s a deadline. And that’s something we often forget.
(To learn how to stop procrastinating, click here.)
Living like it’s your last day or last year is pretty straightforward. Now it’s time to turn carpe diem on its head and think more radically…
3) “Live This Day As If It Were Your First”
Many of us are stuck in routines so dull, algorithms feel bad for us. We’re not in our lives. We’re just background extras in a movie, blending into the scenery while the main character has adventures.
This is where “live like it’s your first day” comes in. It reminds you to snap out of it, to stop treating life like a boring rerun of a sitcom you’ve seen too many times.
We need to be present.
Yes, I know that sounds like advice you’d get from a yoga teacher named Serenity, but stay with me. The idea here is that if we stop living in autopilot mode — if we stop scrolling through life like it’s a Terms & Conditions page — we can actually enjoy it.
Remember when you first got your smartphone and it was like holding a miracle in your hands? You were playing with the flashlight feature and downloading every app like it was Christmas morning. Now you use it to refresh Instagram while sitting on the toilet.
Living like it’s your first day makes you stop and go, “Wait a minute. This is a tiny marvel I’m carrying around in my pocket!” It forces you to wake up from your life-nap and actually experience what’s happening around you.
It’s about seeing the world like a child again. With this perspective, you’re not waiting for some grand life event to snap you out of your malaise. You’re actively choosing to be amazed by the small, wonderful stuff around you. And life is packed full of small, wonderful stuff, if you’re paying attention.
If this was your first day, you wouldn’t be stressed about your water bill or whatever dumb thing you have to do later. No, you’d just be mesmerized by the fact that water comes out of the tap and you don’t even have to dig a well or pray to some rain god to make it happen.
If it’s your first day, you’re not going to guilt yourself over messing something up. You’re new! You’re learning! Burned dinner? No big deal. You’ll eat toast. Burned the toast? You’ve got cereal! Burned the cereal? I don’t even know how you managed that, but there’s a lesson in there somewhere.
I’m not asking you to turn into some overly optimistic psycho who’s blown away by ceiling fans. But living like it’s your first day does make you less cynical. You start to realize that the world isn’t just this repetitive cycle of boring crap. It’s a series of moments that, if you look at them the right way, are actually kind of fantastic.
(To learn how to deal with negative thoughts, click here.)
There’s definitely value in treating today like it’s your first day. Or you could treat it like it’s your second day…
4) “Live This Day As If You Were Living It For The Second Time”
Viktor Frankl said, “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now.”
Wow, what an awkwardly phrased sentence. Translation: he’s saying we should pause and think: “What if I lived like I already screwed this day up once, and now I get a do-over?” Like you’re hitting the cosmic Ctrl+Z on life. “Groundhog Day” meets “Edge of Tomorrow.”
Take a mental lap around your day and say, “Okay, where am I most likely to do something catastrophically stupid? How about I… don’t?”
But it’s not just about avoiding mistakes. It also opens your eyes to opportunities you would’ve blown right past the first time around. Like when someone asks if you want to grab coffee, and your default response is, “Nah, I’ve got too much going on”. Second-Time-You knows that saying yes to that get together would make you much happier.
Now some might think this will lead to second guessing every action and they’ll end up looking like a glitchy character from The Sims. But this isn’t about being some perfect machine. It’s about lowering your regret tally just a little while seizing more opportunities.
(To learn how to be more positive, click here.)
Okay, let’s round this all up – and then we’ll learn the most extreme version of carpe diem. It’s a perspective that can lead to an all-around better life…
Sum Up
Here are your options for how to “seize the day”…
- Live This Day As If It Were Your Last: On the surface this sound like you’re trying to turn your life into some sort of Jackass-meets-the-Purge situation. But it doesn’t need to be that extreme. If you’re not occasionally ditching responsibilities to belt out “Total Eclipse of the Heart” to a crowd of strangers in a karaoke bar at 2 a.m., you’re not living.
- Live This Year As If It Were Your Last: It’s not the end… but you can see it from here. You have time, but not too much time. This can help you prioritize without going crazy. And you’ll be more grateful.
- Live This Day As If It Were Your First: “Be present” isn’t just a Pinterest quote for people who wear hemp. Really look around and notice the things you’ve come to ignore. See the world like a child again.
- Live This Day As If You Were Living It For The Second Time: With the weight of that invisible, non-existent first day looming over you like a disapproving gym coach, you’ll skip some of the dumb decisions that usually leave you feeling like you’ve been hit by the regret bus. And you’ll seize those opportunities that make life memorable.
So what’s the fifth and final perspective on carpe diem? This one comes to us from Friedrich Nietzsche. Yes, Nietzsche. The same guy whose most famous photo makes him look like he’s waiting for someone to ask him why the moustache is that big.
He had an idea that is basically like “Live This Day As If You Were Living It For The Second Time” — but on hard mode. It’s called “the eternal recurrence.”
Now, if you’ve never heard of this cheery concept, here’s the gist: imagine you’re stuck in a loop where you have to live your exact same life, over and over, for eternity. No do-overs, no upgrades, no escape. Excited yet? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Do you know what it’s like to relive a Monday morning status meeting forever? That’s how you break a person. If I wanted that kind of repetition, I’d just rewatch the most cringeworthy moments of my life on a loop (which, fun fact, I already do at 3 a.m.). The eternal recurrence sounds like the greatest guilt trip of all time. Suddenly, every little decision carries the weight of eternity. Why would anyone choose this perspective?
Nietzsche didn’t come up with this to terrify us. No, his point is this: If you had to live your life on repeat, wouldn’t you want it to be a life you could actually tolerate living again and again? And maybe even enjoy?
He’s trying to force us to think, “Maybe I can tweak my life so that, when I’m reliving it for the quadrillionth time, I won’t cringe so hard I pull a muscle.” It’s a philosophical Post-it note on your brain that says, “Live like your choices matter.” Because they do.
Living like you’d want your life to recur isn’t about crafting some perfect existence. It’s about reducing your daily idiocy percentage and doing a few of the things that could make it better. He was talking about deliberately forging a life that feels meaningful, fulfilling, and, most of all, worth repeating. That’s something we can all get behind.
Now none of these 5 approaches to carpe diem comes with a guarantee. Whether you choose to squeeze as much joy as possible into a single day, live like a time-traveler, or reexperience each moment forever, the conclusion is the same: seize something. A day, a year, an idea.
You’ll be able to say “I’m living my best life” – and actually mean it. Even your mistakes will be the kind that make people say, “I wish I had the guts to do something like that,” which, let’s be honest, is pretty high up there as far as compliments go.
Either way, it’s going to be a good story. And ultimately, that’s what matters: that you’re in the story, not watching someone else’s. Grabbing life with both hands is better than casually waving at it from the couch. Do not be a part of the world that would rather empty Netflix queues than bucket lists.
So, go ahead. Carpe that diem. Grab it with sticky fingers, mess it up, make it yours.
No one ever said, “I really admire how restrained you were with your potential.”