Seize The Day Like A Stoic

This leaves you with a few options for today: You can muddle through, you can worry about all the things that might happen, or you can seize the day—here and now. The right choice is obvious, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

The famous Latin phrase carpe diem, or “seize the day,” has stared at us from coffee cups and motivational posters for as long as we’ve been alive. Longer, in fact; it’s from a poem written in 23 B.C. We’ve been struggling to follow this simple anodyne command basically since the beginning of time. It was hard for the ancients, and it’s hard for us.

What is cool, however, is that since right around Horace’s time, smart people—especially the ancient Stoics—have been developing strategies for how to seize the day. They’re not magical solutions, but they do help. They work if you work them. So let’s get to it.

Get up early

I was 19 years old and in college when I first read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. As an underclassman, I found myself stuck in an early class I could never seem to get motivated for. The opening passage of Book V struck me as particularly appropriate:

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”

—But it’s nicer in here…

So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? …

—But we have to sleep sometime… Agreed. But nature set a limit on that—as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit.

It’s just so lovely. The most powerful man in the world chiding himself for wanting to stay in bed. A guy reluctant to get out from under the blankets and put his feet on the cold floor—just like the rest of us. But he knows you can’t seize the day lying down. Dante had a similar line: “Beneath the blanket is no way to fame.” You have to get up. And, ideally, you have to get up early.

Getting up early gives you a win before you actually have to do anything. It also allows you to start working before the distractions and interruptions start. I get up around 6:30 a.m., and by 9 or 10, I’ve already gone for a walk, had breakfast with my family, and written enough that I can count the rest of the day as a bonus.

Do it now

There is procrastination—the habit of putting things off until the last minute—and then there is what most of us do. We tell ourselves, “Oh, I’m definitely going to do it, but not right this second.” “I’ve got time later in the week,” we insist. Or we kick the can in the name of efficiency and tell ourselves we’ll do it when we’re doing some other thing. As Steven Pressfield writes, “We don’t tell ourselves, ‘I’m never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.’” We might even think it’s better to postpone because we’ll be better rested or more prepared. But waiting just increases the chance we don’t do it at all. Life always intervenes, and we might not be lucky enough to have a tomorrow.