“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Look, I’m going to be brutally honest with you: most people never actually seize the day.
They wake up. They scroll. They caffeinate. They complain about Monday. They dream about Friday.
And somewhere between the morning alarm and the evening Netflix binge, an entire life passes them by like scenery through a car window—blurred, forgettable, and utterly wasted.
If that sounds harsh, good. Because the alternative is dying with a mental filing cabinet stuffed full of “I wish I had” and “If only I’d tried.”
You’ve probably heard the phrase “carpe diem” thrown around at graduation speeches and motivational Instagram posts.
Robin Williams immortalized it in Dead Poets Society, standing on desks and yelling about making lives extraordinary. It’s stirring stuff. It gives you goosebumps. And then you go back to your life, and absolutely nothing changes.
Why?
Because nobody tells you HOW to seize the day. They just tell you to do it, as if wanting it badly enough will magically override your mortgage payments, your fear of failure, and your bone-deep terror of looking stupid.
Enter the ancient Stoics—those toga-wearing, wine-sipping philosophers who figured this out 2,000 years ago while the rest of humanity was still blaming the gods for their problems.
The Stoics had a practice called Memento Mori—Latin for “remember you will die.” Not exactly the kind of thing you’d see on a Hallmark card.
Marcus Aurelius, who was literally running the Roman Empire (talk about a stressful day job), wrote in his journal:
“You do not have thousands of years to live. Urgency is on you. While you live, while you can, become good.”
Now, here’s where most people get it wrong. They hear “you’re going to die,” and they spiral into existential dread, buy a motorcycle, and start a podcast about finding yourself. (Spoiler: There are already 4 million podcasts about finding yourself. You’re not special.)
But that’s not the point.
The point is this: when you truly accept that your time is finite—not in a vague, “yeah, yeah, we all die eventually” kind of way, but in a VISCERAL, gut-punching realization—suddenly, all the B.S. falls away.
That argument with your spouse about who left the dishes? Doesn’t matter.
That promotion you didn’t get? Water under the bridge.
That dream of writing a novel, learning Italian, or finally visiting Scandinavia? Suddenly urgent.
Picture this: I’m standing in a dojo, sweating through my gear, bamboo sword in hand. Kendo practice. Full-contact Japanese fencing where you basically beat the hell out of each other with wooden sticks while dressed like a futuristic samurai.
It’s intense. It’s fast. There’s no time to overthink. You move, you strike, you parry—or you get whacked in the ribs hard enough to remind you that hesitation has consequences.
One day, my sensei—this 55-year-old Japanese guy who could still kick my ass six ways to Sunday—said something that stopped me cold:
“To win any battle, you must fight as if you are already dead.”
I blinked. “Wait, what?”
“Fight as if you are already dead,” he repeated, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.
This isn’t some mystical Zen koans meant to confuse you into enlightenment. It’s practical wisdom from Miyamoto Musashi, a 17th-century samurai who wrote The Book of Five Rings—basically the original self-help book for warriors.
Here’s what it means: if you’re afraid of dying in battle, you hesitate. You second-guess. You play it safe. And that’s when you get killed.
But if you mentally accept that you’re already dead—if you walk onto that battlefield knowing your time is up—suddenly, you’re free. Free to act with total commitment. Free to take risks. Free to be FEROCIOUS.
And here’s the kicker: life is no different. When you seize the day with this mindset, you stop playing defense and start playing offense.
Alright, so you’re not a samurai. You probably don’t own a sword (and if you do, we need to talk). But you ARE in a battle—a battle against time, distraction, and your own psychological tendency to procrastinate until you’re 80 and wondering where the hell your life went.
So here’s the tool I use:
The Memento Mori Chart.
It’s a piece of paper hanging on my wall. Nothing fancy. Just a grid of tiny squares—4,160 of them, to be exact.
Each square represents one week of an 80-year life. That’s it. Every Sunday night, I color in one square for the week that just passed.
Sounds morbid, right? Like something a Goth teenager would do while listening to The Cure.
But here’s what actually happens:
Every week, I look at those filled-in squares and ask myself: “Did I LIVE this week, or did I just SURVIVE it?”
Did I take risks? Did I connect with people I care about? Did I create something? Did I move closer to my goals?
Or did I just scroll through X (the app formerly known as Twitter), watch Netflix, and complain about my job?
And let me tell you—when you see those black squares piling up, when you realize you’ve burned through hundreds of weeks and you STILL haven’t done that thing you keep saying you’ll do “someday”?
It lights a fire under you like nothing else. Suddenly, you want to seize the day—not because some motivational speaker told you to, but because you can literally SEE your finite time slipping away.
Bronnie Ware spent years as a palliative care nurse, sitting with people in the final weeks of their lives. She wasn’t there to cure them or extend their time. She was there to make them comfortable while they died.
And in those final moments, when all the pretense and B.S. had been stripped away, people talked. They opened up about their regrets.
Ware compiled these into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Here’s what she found:
1. “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
This was the number one regret. Not “I wish I’d made more money” or “I wish I’d bought a bigger house.” It was: I didn’t live my own damn life.
Think about that. You get one shot at this existence, and most people spend it performing for an audience that doesn’t even care. They never truly seize the day because they’re too busy living someone else’s script.
2. “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.”
Every single male patient expressed this regret. They’d spent their lives on the “treadmill of work existence,” missing their kids’ childhoods and their partners’ companionship.
3. “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”
People buried their emotions to keep the peace. They never told anyone how they really felt. And it ate them alive—sometimes literally, manifesting as physical illness.
4. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.”
Everyone misses their friends in the final weeks. Everyone wishes they’d made time for the people who actually mattered.
5. “I wish I had let myself be happier.”
This one’s wild. Many people didn’t realize until the very end that happiness is a CHOICE. They stayed stuck in old patterns and habits out of fear of change.
Read that list again. Notice what’s NOT on it.
Nobody said, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” Nobody said, “I wish I’d stressed more about what people thought of me.” Nobody said, “I wish I’d played it safer.”
Steve Jobs—yes, THAT Steve Jobs—used Memento Mori to make decisions. In his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, he said:
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”
Let that sink in. The guy who revolutionized personal computing, animated films, music distribution, and smartphones used the awareness of his own mortality as his primary decision-making tool.
Not market research. Not focus groups. Not “What would the shareholders think?”
“Will this matter when I’m dead?”
That’s the question. And it cuts through every bit of noise, politics, and self-doubt like a hot knife through butter.
Look, I need to be real with you: Memento Mori isn’t for everyone.
If you’re struggling with anxiety, or depression, or have a complicated relationship with mortality, this approach could make things worse. It’s meant to be MOTIVATING, not PARALYZING.
Some people look at that chart and feel energized. Others look at it and spiral into existential dread. Know yourself. If it’s the latter, this tool probably isn’t for you—and that’s okay.
But if you’re someone who needs a good kick in the rear to stop putting off the life you actually want to live? This is your wake-up call.
Here’s the thing about seizing the day: it’s not about quitting your job and backpacking through Southeast Asia (though if that’s your thing, go wild). It’s not about YOLO-ing your savings account into crypto.
It’s about waking up every morning with the awareness that this day COUNTS. That you don’t get a do-over. That someday—maybe tomorrow, maybe in 50 years—there won’t be any more days.
And when you truly internalize that? When will you stop treating your life like it’s a dress rehearsal for some “real” life that’s going to start later?
Everything changes.
You stop waiting for permission. You stop caring what your high school classmates think of your LinkedIn profile. You stop postponing joy until you lose 10 pounds, get that promotion, or finish that project.
You start LIVING. You actually seize the day instead of just talking about it.
The Stoic philosopher Seneca put it perfectly:
“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.”
So print out that Memento Mori chart. Hang it somewhere you’ll see it every day. Color in those squares. Ask yourself the hard questions.
And then—and this is the important part—DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
Because as Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Don’t wait until you’re on your deathbed to realize you never really lived. Don’t let another week pass without taking action. The opportunity to seize the day is right here, right now.
The clock is ticking. It’s been ticking since the day you were born. And it’s not going to stop just because you’re not ready.
Memento mori.
Now go seize your damn day.
You know what the most dangerous word in the English language is?
Someday.
“Someday I’ll start that business.”
“Someday I’ll learn to play the guitar.”
“Someday I’ll travel to Japan.”
“Someday I’ll tell them how I really feel.”
Here’s what someday actually means: NEVER.
Someday is the place where dreams go to die. It’s a psychological escape hatch that lets you feel good about having ambitions without ever having to do the uncomfortable work of actually pursuing them.
According to research from the University of Scranton, only 8% of people actually achieve their New Year’s resolutions. That means 92% of people are living in permanent “someday” mode, perpetually deferring their lives to a future that never quite arrives.
But here’s the beautiful, terrifying truth: you don’t need more time. You need more URGENCY.
That’s what the Memento Mori mindset gives you. It transforms “someday” into “today.” It converts vague aspirations into concrete actions. It turns the abstract concept of mortality into a practical tool for getting your ass in gear.
Because when you look at that chart and see those empty squares dwindling, “someday” suddenly feels a lot less comforting. Suddenly, it feels like what it actually is: a lie you tell yourself to avoid discomfort.
And maybe—just maybe—that uncomfortable truth is exactly what you need to finally start living. To finally stop procrastinating and seize the day like you mean it.
DISCLOSURE: In my article, I’ve mentioned a few products and services, all in a valiant attempt to turbocharge your life. Some of them are affiliate links. This is basically my not-so-secret way of saying, “Hey, be a superhero and click on these links.” When you joyfully tap and spend, I’ll be showered with some shiny coins, and the best part? It won’t cost you an extra dime, not even a single chocolate chip. Your kind support through these affiliate escapades ensures I can keep publishing these useful (and did I mention free?) articles for you in the future.
READ NEXT
