This winter marked the halfway point in the class of 2021’s final stride as high school students. Not long before the break, my English curriculum crossed into the poetry unit. Now, poetry has always been a mysterious subject for me— I have never understood or connected with any of its works or concepts on the fundamental levels— and I’m sure many of my peers would agree with this sentiment. So, for the greater good of our education, our 2021 senior English classes prepared to mentally clock out for high school’s last attempt to draw out our cognitive ability with some random Shakespeare bars. But this particular time around, the intro was…different. The first definition the class of impatient seniors would come to acquaint themselves with would just so happen to be a very if-not-the-most relevant notion: ‘carpe diem.’
Again, I was not the most avid scribe or prose reader. To me, it was a funny little phrase. But to those who come to understand its importance, as my class and I soon did, carpe diem embodies a cry so great that it doesn’t need to be translated to hold weight; for us to know it at a young age equips us with a vehicle much better suited to pursuing a fulfilling life.
Carpe diem means ‘seize the day,’ a cry meant to encourage listeners to focus on what they have now or what takes place in the present. Ever since its first noteworthy use in the Roman poet Horace’s Odes, the essence of carpe diem has become very obvious in literature and conversation. Poets and authors alike see carpe diem best as a theme of its own, used best in tandem with contemporary comparisons to portray a sense of urgency for readers to take away from written works and to use in their lives. This same theme motivates the energy in common sayings, as well. But whether we cry ‘seize the day,’ ’live in the moment,’ or ‘grab the chance,’ the message is communicated all the same.
Now, it can be said that everyone is seizing their days just by living. From the perspective of us soon-to-be young adults, we already have so much to accomplish ahead of us; what is there to be had in the now? But it is just that sort of mindset that carpe diem challenges by wanting to live...more. Think about babies, our earliest and simplest stages of life. When they try to walk, babies aren’t thinking about how they just started crawling, how much better other babies can walk, or if their stubby legs are going to blow up after taking a step. Babies just try. They may fall, they may cry, but they continue to try. Their struggle is the epitome of seizing the day. So should we as grown babies, nearly two decades later, still be trying to move one much heavier and more uncertain foot after the other more anxious step we just took?
These words need to reach the minds of those worried about what step is next for them after secondary education. Many wish to plan out the next phases of their lives but are bothered by the cloud ahead. The thing is, you can’t get to the next step without taking the one you’re on now. So make it a darn good step while you’re at it.