Billy Collins

Time is not money. Time is time. When your time is over, you will be remembered for what you did, not for what you never got around to doing.

The corollary to carpe diem is gratitude — gratitude for simply being alive, for having a day to seize. The taking of breath, the beating of the heart.

Sometimes we need an event to shock us into the present. Some of us require a catastrophic experience to remind us that we are indeed alive. Others know this from their reading of poetry — a somewhat less traumatic experience.