Repost from Quora: At what point does the phrase “carpe diem” become a meaningless hedonism?

For most people, the phrase Carpe diem becomes instantly meaningless because they don’t understand what it means, or the context in which it was first used.

When the Latin poet Horace first wrote this 2000 years ago, he wasn't about to go skydiving with a Vegas call-girl he just married in an Elvis-themed wedding chapel while riding a wave of some killer Ecstasy, he was basically giving advice about the dangers of trusting the future to take care of things for you and the importance of appreciating the moment.

The full phrase as written by Horace was Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero or something like "Seize the Day, trusting as little as possible in the next day”. Taken in the larger context of his writings, what this basically means is something like “don’t put off tomorrow what you can/should do today, because you never know what the future will bring”. This is the kind of advice your parents give you when they encourage you to go to college instead of pursuing your dream of being a professional competitive Legend of Zelda player, or when your accountant suggest you divert some of the money that you’re "investing" in decorative beer steins into your 401K.

The whole use of  Carpe diem as a rallying cry to fuck around and do something stupid is perpetuated by wannabe-pretentious boneheads who think that Caesar Augustus is a type of salad.

So the next time you find yourself in a cow pasture at 4am, and your drunken friend is trying to encourage you to tip over a sleeping longhorn bull while blabbering Carpe diem, push his face into a cow patty and tell him that he’s an asshole for corrupting some good advice poor old Horace was trying to give.