Carpe Diem

Recently, I've been doing a lot of "carping" (zeizing) my "diems" (days) as the sunny weather has shown up for what might be a fleeting moment, and this has lead me to make new connections in my thinking and my philosophy of life.

I do a lot of work with people on time management, and we look at priorities, and try to align how we spend time with what we want to get done. This is another kind of seizing the day - in that we seize it by the throat and meld it to our own wills. That certainly has its place in fending off the default drudge which would otherwise confiscate every waking moment.

I also work a lot with people who "SHOULD all over themselves" - they are stuck in what ought to be and not in what actually IS.

This distortion serves to divert attention from the "make things better" paradigm to the "lament why things are all wrong" paradigm".

Are these strategies in opposition? Well - yes and no. Choosing the right strategy comes down to being awake and alert. Most of us spend much of the time semi-conscious - our auto-pilot is saving us the bother of living through the drudge of working, eating, driving, and so on (more on that here), but this severely limits our opportunities for choice-making in the here-and-now.

In a place where we may get ten decent sunny days in a year, making the most of one of them can be more important than what you were planning to do today. (You DID have a plan, right? Of course you do, and I'm sure it's carefully aligned with your life goals too).

In a world where health is fragile and life is fleeting, where friends are important, where the life plan our society imprints on us is dubious at best, where crystal balls don't work, being awake, being flexible and keeping a keen eye on what's important seems smart.

So the "solid strategy" view might not be the best one in all cases. Think instead of a sea. Sometimes calm, but often not - waves, tides, winds, storms, passing ships, the odd man-eating shark, some sun, the odd sandy beach.

What I'm saying is - try for this.

See what really is,
See what you really want,
Be open, agile, creative & determined to
Stitch the two together

In other words, Carpe Diem!