Seize the Day, Live Life My Friend!

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Hey Academy,

If you boil life down to its essentials — the two or three things that matter most from day to day — seize the day is certainly on that short list. It's at the heart of my favorite movie, Dead Poets Society.

Each day we get up, we have a lot of choices. But we have one choice that matters most: to live that day to the best of our ability. And if we do that, we'll be much better off. It's obvious when you think about it.

And you're probably reading this nodding your head — yeah, I know. We've heard these things our whole life. But that's exactly the point. You know it, but you don't really know it. You haven't internalized it. Because day after day, we don't actually seize the day. That's what makes it such an interesting concept — something we know, yet don't do.

I don't say it every day, but on a regular basis I tell my kids to seize the day. I tell them to live life. I tell them to scream it out in public — which, of course, they don't, because that's embarrassing.

But you should. You should go out and scream it out. Walk out into — maybe not the middle of a crowd, but out in an area where people will hear you, so it's real. And do it.

My friend and I used to ride our bikes to this little section of road where we would pedal as fast as we could until a line in the pavement where we'd take our feet off the pedals, just to see how far we could get. Each time trying to get a little bit further than the last. And for whatever reason, we would yell at the same time: "Live life, my friend!" People would look at us strangely, as you might expect. That's easier with a friend, of course — doing these things. But the value of those little moments is that they pull you out of the day-to-day. They remind you to live life. To seize the day.

And it's especially hard when you're in a mode where you're failing. Maybe you've kept trying to do something and you failed. Or maybe you actually achieved something great — and then you screwed it up. It feels like all is lost. Maybe you're 40 or 45 or even 50. Or maybe you're young. And you feel like you gave away that one opportunity you had. Maybe you did. Maybe you didn't. Who knows?

I can tell you this: the older you get, the harder it becomes, because you have less time to make it back up. That is a difficult pill to swallow. And so you almost think, well, shit — I fucked it up. There's no use getting back on the horse.

But of course, that's silly. All you need to do to shake yourself out of it is to see someone older than you, or in a worse position — someone you would encourage in the same way to seize the day, to live life to the fullest.

So if you're reading this message and trying to find that motivation — here it is. Brighter days are ahead.

Seize the day. Live life, my friend.

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