If I’m honest, I’m not super excited about today. The Fibro’s been asserting itself, and I got acupuncture yesterday for the first time in about two months. If you’ve never done acupuncture before, there’s a hangover the first couple times.
Between them, while the pain isn’t off the charts, the lethargy score’s pretty high. I feel like there’s been a significant ass kicking. And the ass was mine.
Against that backdrop, today’s Daily Stoic Journal reading is a bit of a challenge. The theme is Carpe Diem. If you’re in my demographic, you can almost hear Robin Williams whisper it to his class. Seize the day, boys.
In the entry, he quotes Seneca, saying “As each day arises, welcome it as the very best day of all, and make it your own possession.”
I’m not sure I want to possess today. I’d like to return is for a different day. This one is a mess. Given the fact that today will never come again, I almost feel like I got cheated.
Unfortunately, there’s no customer service desk to process a return. There’s no phone tree, leading (with luck) to a human. I can pick up the phone and say “Representative!” all I want and nothing will happen.
This is the day I have. Making life extraordinary means sometimes you have to do hard things on days when you’d rather not.
Seizing the day doesn’t mean you run a marathon while you’re sick. It doesn’t mean you go out and thwart evil, cure cancer, and make everyone’s life better at work. It means you take your limitations into account, do your best, and take care of yourself. It means you do some things you’d rather not do (stretching this morning was a bitch). You play your hand to the best of your ability.
You write a blog post mixing a bunch of metaphors.
It means you go to bed secure in the knowledge that you did your best.
I have to go into the office today. I might not last the entire day. If so, that’s okay. I’ll have done my best. For me, today, that would be seizing the day.
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