Carpe diem is a Latin aphorism, usually translated as “seize the day” or “pluck the day [as it is ripe]”. It is a philosophy that we should take more seriously.
Seize the day or carpe diem is an interesting philosophy with two interpretations for me.
Your life is short – make the most of it
First, your life is short – make the most of it.
This needs little explanation and is summed up beautifully in this clip from “The Dead Poets Society” with Robin Williams.
Carpe Diem | Dead Poets SocietyWe are food for worms. How will you be remembered?
Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.
Focus less on what should happen in the future and more on what is happening now
Second, and this is the more interesting interpretation, focus more on what you are doing in the present rather than creating some grandiose plan for the future.A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.
We have more control over the present than we ever do over the future.
This is not just a personal philosophy but a business and societal one.
Several modern-day thought leaders have made this point in different ways:
The sciences of complexity change our perspective and thinking. Perhaps, as a result we should, especially in management, focus more attention on what we are doing than what we should be doing.
Following the thinking presented by the most advanced scientific researchers, the important question to answer is not what should happen in the future, but what is happening now?
Knowledge Management should be focused on real, tangible intractable problems not aspirational goals.
It should deal pragmatically with the evolutionary possibilities of the present rather than seeking idealistic solutions.
It is not just modern thought leaders – Seneca and Horace understood the concept over 2,000 years ago.
The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future.
We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.
Credit: Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Scale back your long hopes to a short period. While we speak, time is envious and is running away from us.
Seize the day, trusting little in the future.
Credit: Horace
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What can you do right now, today?
The critical point in all of this is that in a complex world where so much is uncertain and unpredictable, it is difficult, if not impossible, to plan for the future, especially an idealistic one.
It makes better sense to adopt a strategy of setting a direction and then figuring out, in Dave Snowden’s words, the evolutionary possibilities of the present.
Put in more straightforward language: What can I do now, today, this moment, to move what I am trying to do in the direction I would like to see things go? What are the possibilities? What are the opportunities? Right now!
Carpe Diem. Seize the day, everyone.
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Things Todo
- Action: What can I do right now, today, this moment, to move what I am trying to do in the direction I would like to see things go? What are the possibilities? What are the opportunities? Right now!
Resources
- Article: Carpe Diem! How the philosophy of ‘seize the day’ was hijacked and what the phrase should mean
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The Gurteen Knowledge Letter is a free monthly newsletter with over 20,000 subscribers that I have been publishing by email for over 20 years.
Learn more about the newsletter and register here.