Debunking The Carpe Diem Myth
January 18th, 2007Carpe diem is a latin phrase and means “seize the day”. It’s a brilliant teaching. It suggests that the time is always now and its more important than the past and the future. So true.
However, I see that many people have the urge to seize the day so much that they end up with seizures about the day instead of seizing the day.
Any teaching can become an anxiety. Our main failure with our lives is that we only pay attention to it when there is a problem. In fact, there is always the problem of being.
And when we start paying attention only after life hits somehow, then our teachings, life-hacks, therapies etc. become our new disorders and sources of anxiety.
The exit point of such an anxiety is to understand that if we want to seize the day, the method is not talking about seizing the day a day long. It’s about to stop talking about carpe diem and trying to understand that we live anyway, the day is not ahead but within us.
Depending too much on wise quotes is just about preparing yourself a new prison and this is a strong way of maintaining depression and anxiety.