看过《死亡诗社》（Dead Poets Society）的小伙伴想必会很熟悉“carpe diem”这个短语。
在电影中，罗宾·威廉斯扮演的基廷老师带着威尔顿学校的学生们观看校友的黑白照片时，说出了这句电影史上的金句之一：
Carpe diem, seize the day, boys, make your lives extraordinary.
把握今朝，抓住现在，年轻人，去创造不同凡响的人生。
电影《死亡诗社》
其实，“carpe diem”源自于古罗马诗人贺拉斯在公元前23年所写的《颂歌》（Odes），原文由拉丁文写成，翻译为“采下这一天，别指望明天”。
其中“carpe diem”直译成英文就是“pluck the day”，而pluck意为采摘，比如摘花（pluck the flower）。
Carpe diem is part of Horace’s injunction "carpe diem quam minimum credula postero," which appears in his Odes(I.11), published in 23 BC. It can be translated literally as "pluck the day, trusting as little as possible in the next one." The phrase is more widely known as "seize the day".
现在，“carpe diem”通常被引申为“把握当下”（seize the day）或是“及时行乐”。
Carpe diem means different things to different people. For some it's about taking a once in a lifetime opportunity, while for others it is about indulging in wild hedonism or living calmly in the present moment.
在《死亡诗社》上映三十多年后的今天，“carpe diem”已经成为了流行文化的宠儿。社交媒体话题“YOLO”所表达的“你只能活一次”（you only live once）的价值观中，就有carpe diem的影子。
但是，从这里也可以看出，carpe diem所表示的意义越来越近似于享乐主义（hedonism）。商家也开始滥用“carpe diem”的概念来诱导大众购物狂欢。
Carpe diem has been hijacked, its potential to transform our lives is rapidly slipping away from us. The spirit has been surreptitiously hijacked by consumer culture, which has recast it as Black Friday shopping sprees and one-click buying.
“Carpe diem”的含义已经被劫持了，它本有改变我们人生的潜力，但这力量却在迅速消退。它的精神已经被消费文化偷偷地劫走，其意义也被改写为黑色星期五的购物狂欢和一键购买。
这也是一个语言学家和哲学家们都在讨论的问题。
不少学者认为“carpe diem”的翻译应当按照贺拉斯诗中的原义，译为“采撷今日”（pluck the day），而非“抓住/把握当下”（seize the day）。澳大利亚哲学家罗曼·柯兹纳里奇（Roman Krznaric）在《为“carpe diem”正名》（Reclaiming Carpe Diem）一文中说：
While usually translated as "seize" the day, the original Latin is sometimes rendered as "harvest", "pluck" or "enjoy" the day. This hijacking is an existential crime of the century – and one we have barely noticed.
虽然人们通常把carpe diem翻译为“把握当下”，但其原本拉丁语含义常常是“收获”“采撷”“享受”这一天。这种对carpe diem本意的劫持是本世纪的一个存在主义罪过，几乎无人意识到这一点。
