Nowadays, it is more and more frequent to find the expression "Carpe diem" as a "hook" to designate, for example, a discotheque, a massage conference room , a brand of ice cream or a liqueur. Just today I read this news in the press: yesterday the " Carpe diemFestival" was held. It is also fashionable to get tattoos on one's arms with this phrase. However, its origin is very distant: it goes back to some of the "Odes" written by the Roman poet Horace (65 B.C. - 5 B.C.) for people overwhelmed by the brevity of life and an uncertain future. Horace proposes them to adopt the attitude of Carpe diem, which in its translation to language has two opposite meanings.

The first is "seize the day and the moment; live as if each day were your last". It is an invitation not to put off until tomorrow what we can do today, not to waste the limited time available and to take care of everything. A good response to the brevity of life is that of Mahatma Gandhi: "Live as if you were going to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

The second meaning is "capture the day and the present moment to enjoy the most of the sensible pleasures, without thinking about the future". In common parlance it is usually expressed as: "let's live, there are four days! It is a continuity with the hedonistic message of the Epicurean philosophers, who identified happiness with pleasure. With the passage of time, this attitude would become a cliché of universal literature that has even reached our times, affecting above all adolescents and young people. This behavior has been denominated by A. Polaino "instantaneimo hedonista". However, there have always been critical positions towards this topic, considering that it is irresponsible to worry only about the pleasurable present without thinking about the future.

Those who opt for the hedonistic Philosophy of Carpe diem, do not think about saving and training; they do what they feel like doing at all times without considering the possible consequences. The most radical ones concretize it in "living to the fullest" giving free rein to their instincts. They are in a hurry to get the most out of life; for them the end justifies the means. This stance is reflected in behaviors such as the following:

"We walked as if there was no yesterday and no tomorrow. As if we had to consume the whole world at every instant, just in case the future never wanted to arrive." (María Dueñas)

In recent years the expression Carpe diem has become very popular due to the film directed by Peter Weir, "The Dead Poets Club" (1989). A year later it was awarded an Oscar. The main actor, Robin Williams, plays the role of Professor Keating, who aims to instill in his students the Philosophy of a non-hedonistic Carpen Diem, based on the healthy satisfaction of using time to do valuable things. This implies having the illusion of being something concrete in life and starting to live it in some way.

Keating tries to get his students to change their attitude; to stop being conformists and become protagonists. He makes it clear to them that Carpe diem is not just a catch phrase; to understand its meaning, it is necessary to use reason and learn to face the possible consequences of this way of life in advance. Keating sought to free his students from mediocrity and to make them aspire to high goals. They will end up assuming it as a challenge and a conquest staff.

The will to pleasure is not bad; what is bad is to submit irrationally to it, without ever saying no.

 Ricardo Yepes maintains that the hedonistic Carpe diem "is not for professional life, where the logic of seriousness and long-term tasks prevails deadline. It is, therefore, an incomplete approach to life, since it does not take into account human effort, pain, limitation and illness, which threatens fatalism. The hedonist, the man centered on the attainment of pleasure, lacks answers to effort and pain. Deep down, he ends up living always in fear, because the present follows an unstoppable succession in time over which he has no control. It is the logic of the immature and the irresponsible" (R. Yepes and J. Aranguren: Fundamentals of anthropology).

The attitude of Carpe diem has great formative possibilities when it is interpreted as a challenge to conquer higher and more valuable goals in life staff. In that case its resurgence is good news. It is not when the paralyzing fear of the future is used as an alibi for a libertine and gentrified life.