That means “Live the present!”, right? Well, yes and no. Horace used the word “carpe” with the meaning “enjoy”, “seize”, “use”, “make use of”. You can put any of those words in front of “day” and you will get the point.

To put it a context, the phrase “carpe diem” was written by Horace in Odes 1, poem 11.

“carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero”

Translated:

“Seize the day, trust tomorrow as little as you may”

What Horace means is that the future is unforeseen and you should not leave it to chance. Do all that you can today to make your future better.

Let’s challenge ourselves in 2019 to seize every day. To make proper use of our time as much as possible.

Yes, there are a lot of texts that make analogies between money and time. It’s not wrong, but it doesn’t work all the time (unless you live in the movie “In Time”).

Let’s think of it in a different way. Most people work 40 hours per week. This gives us 2080 hours of work per year. In one day you have 24 hours. You use for work 10 (8 hours actually working plus lunch break, commuting etc). You sleep 8 hours. You are left with 6 hours. From these, let’s say you use 3 of them doing essential stuff, like cooking, showering, cleaning, shopping. This leaves 3 hours a day for you to use as you please.

3 hours a day, every day of the year, that’s 1095 hours. If you have the weekends off (or other days off form work) this adds the 8 hours per day you would use at work to your leisure time. Having 52 weeks and 2 days in a weekend, it means you have an additional 832 hours at your disposal.

The entire time you have at your disposal per year is 1927 hours. If we look above, it’s almost as much as the time you spend at work. And this calculation was made without taking Holidays into account!

Now think about it: you have at your disposal just as much time as you have at work. The amount of things you get done at work you can also get done in your personal life if you dedicate 3 hours per day (and a bit more in weekends)!

What do you do with that time? It’s your choice! You have so many things you can do. Read a good book, watch a good movie, visit a nice place, learn something new, spend time with your family and friends, practice your hobby. And so much more.

For 2019 I wish you Carpe Diem!

Psalms 90:12