Carpe Diem

 My friend Sandra was an oncology nurse.  20 years ago, the survival rate of cancer patients was not as high as it is today.  Sandra said, and I quote, “Every day I met people recently confronted by the horrible truth that they would not live to fulfill their dreams.  Their dreams and plans of a lifetime were snatched away the instant they received that horrible diagnosis. I resolved to not be a victim.  I retired early.  My husband Bob and I bought this sailboat and named it Carpe Diem.”

Carpe Diem is a very popular inspirational phrase.  It means, sieze the day.  Other translations are, pluck the day as it is ripe, enjoy the moment, And if not now, then when?, Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, remember that you are mortal, make your life excellent.  Then Robert Herrick wrote a poem saying, Make Much of Time, Come carpe diem, baby!  --- strangely the title of his poem was To The Virgins.

My definition of Carpe Diem includes all that.  But mine is more nuanced.  My version is more suitable for you to apply in your daily life, even if you’re not a virgin, and even if you don’t have the opportunity to be an adventurer.   I’ll illustrate what I mean with two consecutive and seemingly contradictory events from my own life.

I retired in 2005 at the young age of 60.  The truth is that I was burned out from overwork.  My wife Libby and I had never discussed retirement.  We had no plans, and no ideas.  Our kids were grown and dispersed.  We were both healthy.  Our discussion revealed that our favorite memories from life were the times that we rented a sailboat and cruised some exotic place.  So we made up our minds.  We would buy a cruising sailboat, and get rid of our house, our car, our furniture, our pets, in short everything we owned in the world that wouldn’t fit in a suitcase.  

Fast forward 10 months.  There were numerous obstacles to achieving that goal, but we were determined and we made it happen.  10 months later we were enjoying the splendid weather in the Florida keys, with 6 months, and 6000 miles of cruising experience behind us.  What next?  Like most new cruisers, we had high ambition.  We said, “Let’s go to the Panama Canal, then sail up to Alaska to take our son David and grandson Bobby sailing, then we’ll continue going around the world.”

Well, yada yada yada.  A month later, we sat in the boat anchored off the beach in Mexico on the northern coast of The Yucatan Peninsula.  We had been blown off course.  The nearest village was hundreds of miles away.  We had to wait a week for bad weather to pass.  So we talked.

“You know,” Libby said, “If we go around the world we won’t see our grandchildren for 5 years.”   “Hmm,” I said, “That’s true.  Not only that, but I would really love to explore the East coast of North America, and The Bahamas, and The Caribbean.  Isn’t it a bit out of our way to sail from Mexico to the Caribbean by going all the way around the world?”   So, when the weather changed, we turned around and sailed back to Florida.  It was a decision we never regretted.

So, in the first case we said, Carpe Diem and we chose the life of adventure.  But only 11 months later we said Carpe Diem, let’s abandon that high adventure and stick closer to home.  The two decisions sound directly contradictory, yet I apply Carpe Diem to both.  How can that be?  Is Carpe Diem just a cliché phrase that you can attach to anything?

I’ll tell you the secret.  My definition of Carpe Diem does not mean that you must choose adventure and the highest aspirations.  My definition is to be thoughtful, and then to have the courage to make a decision.   By my definition, the opposite of Carpe Diem is not unadventurous.  No, by my definition the opposite of Carpe Diem is indecisiveness.

So, I say to all of you in the audience.  No matter what your age.  No matter what your situation.  You have a Carpe Diem moment right here right now.  You have the opportunity to decide to adopt my definition of Carpe Diem as your definition.