The Mindfulness Blog

The Roman poet Horace is credited with having first coined the phrase "carpe diem", more than 2,000 years ago. To the dismay of many, it's been used to market and promote things that didn't even exist in Horace's time. It's even used (in places like this blog) to promote something that predated Horace by more than a century:  Mindfulness.

Granted, "seize the day" (English translation) is different than "seize the moment", but the basic idea remains the same-- the time to be alive, is now. As the English poet, Robert Herrick, wrote; "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may". Stated yet another way, a not-so-famous philosopher I met during my college years once said: "You gotta live life, while you're living!". You get the idea.

Carpe momentum: "Seize the moment". A catchy phrase should never be wasted-- especially when it captures the essence of something as elusive, challenging and life-changing as mindfulness. I'm sure somebody said that, at one time or another-- but if that's not the case, now it's been said!

Achilles (Brad Pitt) has a line in the movie Troy, that absolutely blows me away, and particularly resonates in this conversation. He says: "The gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal. Because any moment may be our last. Everything is beautiful, because we're doomed". Truer words have never been spoken!

Speaking mindfully, "seize the moment" might more accurately be tweaked to be, "live the moment", but the analogy still holds true. As the above-quoted lines, spoken by Achilles, go on to conclude, "You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here, again". Stated differently by Ram Dass, "Be Here Now".

Embracing the finiteness of existence is deeply life-affirming, even though it might seem counter intuitive. The moment really is where it's at, and it's incredible to me that so many people don't appreciate that fact. Fool me once, shame on you-- fool me twice, shame on me.

Let's not get fooled again, by letting the moments slip away, unnoticed!