“Carpe Diem (Seize the Day)”~Horace, a Roman poet

Many people are throwing around the word Yolo (you only live once) these days.  They might use it to describe why they are doing something exciting or to rationalize taking risks or making bad decisions.  The original Yolo was Carpe Diem or Seize the Day.  It means to take hold of every moment, to attempt to achieve great things daily, and to live each day intentionally

It is so easy to get caught up in the routine of life:  wake up, get ready, go to work, school, or church; eat, drink, and sleep.  We make lists and check them off.  We come home after a long day and veg in front of the computer or TV.  We go to bed and then we do it all over again the next day, but do we stop and analyze our life?  Do we think about what we are doing to make our life better for ourselves and those around us?  Do we make lofty goals and ponder the steps it will take to reach them?  Most of the time, we can answer no.  Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost our passion, our joy, and our courage.

“You’ve lost your muchness,” the Mad Hatter tells Alice in the film Alice in Wonderland (2010).  He’s trying to tell her that she’s become too fearful to kill the Jabberwocky.  It seems that she’s lost her gumption and her sense of adventure since she’d last been in Wonderland:

We too lose our will to overcome obstacles.  Maybe we’ve had too many bad days, or maybe we’ve merely decided to breeze through life.  It’s easy to cower in the background.  It’s easy to do as little as possible if we can get away with it.  It’s easy to get caught up in our routine and never challenge ourselves to be a better person.

It’s harder to think deeply about our problems and search for ways to solve them.  It’s difficult to try new things that we’ve never done before.  Routines were meant to be broken and lessons are waiting to be learned.  Therefore, we have to seize the day every day, because it will be worth it in the end.