Carpe Diem Sub Specie Aeternitatis

One of my favorite Latin phrases growing up was, “Carpe Diem”, which is most commonly interpreted “Seize the day.” or “Seize the moment.” I was introduced to the phrase through the movie Dead Poets Society, starring Robin Williams.

I aspired to live by this motto throughout my teenage years. I acted in theatre, did show choir, did solos in the general school choir (including doing the “Here I come to save the day!” bit from the Mighty Mouse theme song), was in bells chorus, went out for wrestling (have a funny story about a girl wrestler who was beating up on the guys, so I ruthlessly whipped her in a match), participated in (and won) the hotly contested King of Karaoke title at a local coffee house… etc. When I saw anything that others didn’t want to do, I’d do it because I wanted to “carpe diem.”

For a forgotten reason, I later dug into the phrase a little deeper and discovered that “carpe” means to grasp or pluck, as in someone plucking fruit from a tree, and it took on new meaning for me. As opposed to the phrase meaning something almost reckless and Gretzkian (“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”), it became about being careful in your selection of what you do, as you would in selecting a piece of fruit from a tree.

You want to ensure you’re plucking the most perfectly ripe piece of fruit at that moment. This shift in mindset yielded much better fruit in my life. I became more careful, more discerning, and wiser. I started saying no to most things to allow focus to enter my life. This was a vast improvement. So, taken this way, “carpe diem” means “Choose carefully what you say and do in this moment, for this moment is too important to waste”. It seems like a more honoring interpretation of the phrase.

Then, as I progressed even further, I ran across another Latin phrase that I fell in love with: “sub specie aeternitatis”, which means, “under the perspective of eternity.” I thought to myself, “I want to do everything under the perspective of eternity, and I want nothing in my life that does not have eternal value.” Shortly after, I had the epiphany of fusing the two phrases together to create the epic mothership of all Latin phrases: “Carpe diem sub specie aeternitatis”, which by my interpretation means, “Carefully select what you will do and say in this moment under the perspective of eternity.”

So, instead of Carpe Diem being a call to aggressively pursue something today, it might be a simple encouragement to consider what is appointed for in this moment in time.