Happy Carpe Diem Day.

 Happy Carpe Diem Day

You must remember the film Dead Poets Society starring the late and great Robin Williams. So he turns to address his wonderfully attentive class and tells them that they should simply Carpe Diem, which translates from the Latin as Seize the Day. Williams, apart from being the funniest comedian of all time, becomes very wise and philosophical but the meaning of the phrase has far reaching consequences. 

Yes folks. Carpe Diem Day doesn't really mean a lot to anybody in particular. Of course it implies that we should express our eternal gratitude for everything in life, grateful for small mercies. It also suggests that we should do our upmost to take advantage of the good things in life such as good physical and mental health but generally it'll probably be the kind of day where everybody pauses for just five minutes and stops to admire the multi layered landscape of our lives, the naked branches on the trees desperate for some green foliage, the glorious countryside, the winding, twisting country lanes and  the vast acres of parkland.

But we know all about that anyway so perhaps we should just move on and be thankful for our daily bread. And yet for the last two years it's hard to imagine how any of us could have seized any day because every day kept slipping from our grasp just when we thought we'd grabbed hold of it with some relish. Still, better than later. Now is the time is to regard the things that were beautiful and still are. Now could be the time to finish off that novel you kept hiding at the back of your chest of drawers but didn't think was worth completing.

Carpe Diem is the perfect time for the realisation of some long term project at home, striving to achieve the unattainable and just feeling good about yourself whoever you are. None of us can really begin to understand the moods and nuances of the day but we do know that every day should be treated with as much affection as possible. Of course every day is different and utterly precious. We all look for recognition and approval from both our family and friends but there can be moments in our lives when we forget about the fundamental goodness that lies deep within our soul.

But there are others when we'll spend all of our days regretting lost opportunities, squandered mornings, afternoons and evenings, forgetting about what we fear might have led to progress, advancement, personal satisfaction and the ultimate fulfilment of being there when it mattered most. We look back on our lives pondering over those annoying probabilities and then are shocked to discover that, as human beings, that we knew it and blew it and then felt pretty awful afterwards.

How many times over the last two years have you felt as if you were capable of doing so much more and then perhaps let ourselves down because the whole world had shut down and what was the point anyway? So we dithered and dallied over where to go next, all the time wishing that we could have done better if only we'd persevered and didn't stop to think why.

There seemed a point during the first lockdown in Britain when most of us would have prayed for just one day when the timing of vital decisions could have done with room for improvement. Then the day just disappeared into the ether never to be retrieved. Boris Johnson's fiercest critics still maintain that the announcement of lockdown times were a shoddily appalling business. If Britain had followed the lead of the rest of the world perhaps we wouldn't have been in this terrible mess. But now the days have fallen by the wayside and here we are almost two years since the first lockdown and March 2020 still sounds like some painful and historic date when everything went dramatically wrong for us.

On the first Saturday since the alleged lifting of all Covid 19 restrictions which means that today should be the day in theory when we run out into our streets and roads and sing with some conviction Kool and the Gang's timeless Celebration. But the feeling around us is that although the wearing of masks is no longer compulsory, some people are still treading water. And yet none of us know how to react to such fabulous news. Is this a delayed reaction or hasn't Carpe Diem kicked in yet? Maybe we've lost that familiar sensation you get when somebody tells you that you've won a prize in a competition or, dare we say, trousered huge quantities of life changing money. Because we know what that does to us.

The fact is Carpe Diem feels very special because that's the way it should always feel and yet we seemed to allow it to blithely wash over us. Is it possible to take some genuine significance from any day? But today is the day for stopping whatever you're doing and taking pleasure from whatever you happen to be doing. You could be sitting quite contentedly by a river bank and dangling a fishing rod for hours on end and catching as many trout as you possibly can. Of course you may just simply throw the said fish straight back into the river but if it's something that makes you happy and feeling great then why ever not.

You could be sitting by the same riverbank and then decide that you simply want to take out your artist's easel and paint the kingfishers and robins on the surface of a languid lake, the first buds on the petals of trees and the gentle lapping of the water. There is something about that whole concept of seizing of the day that ever present emotion that does have a definite shape of its own but can very rarely be felt. Life of course is beautiful and stunning, our work of our art, something to be cherished and held onto. We must today look around and take what we can from the day and then just appreciate its importance. Happy Carpe Diem Day, everyday. Oh and if you're a Bill Withers fan have a Lovely Day. Keep smiling folks.