How can you Carpe Diem?

Today, makes it 38 years that my mom was promoted to heaven. She was only 50. The following month, I emptied our family home of over 28+ years, had it leased and was off to Wheaton Graduate School.

Now it’s 38 years later - wow, so much has happened. This week I reflected on her life, and about her passing at such a young age (50). No doubt when I was 25, 50 seemed old. Yet doing the math, I’ve lived 12 years longer on this earth than my mom had alive. 

12 years! As I reflect on her life, I’m not thinking about what’s changed since she passed on, rather what have I done with 12 years of living that really matters? What have I done in 12 years that makes an eternal difference to someone. Rather than being over whelmed with the absence of my mom for 38 years, I’m thinking about the blessing of being alive for 12 years more that my mom had on this earth.  If 12 is too mind boggling, I thought of to break it down to individual years and even to one day! So I wonder, what can I do, what am I doing to seize the day, and make a difference ‘Carpe Diem’ in this world God has place me in?

For many people in my generation we were first made aware of this concept, Carpe Diem, from the great movie staring Robing Williams, Dead Poet Society. Click here to see that classic scene…

While I will obviously think about my mom, who loved me very much, who was one of my greatest cheerleaders, who had a deep appreciation for Neil Diamond and Frank Sinatra, who opened our modest home to my friends, her witty sense of humor was passed on to me as well as her desire to be a truth teller of people. I have also reflected on, what have I done to make a difference in the world - to make the world a better place? What have I done to make an eternal difference in the lives of the people I love? To my family and friends? What have I done to make a difference to the people I cross paths with? I’ve had at least 12 years more in living on the earth and have I seized the day?

And if I haven’t seized the day today, what can I do to seize the day tomorrow?

Feel free to share, something you do or can do today to seize the day…