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Upon digging through an old personal stash of (admittedly terrible) poetry from a lifetime ago, I stumbled across a bit of oddly inspiring prose from Nietzsche. It will no doubt be familiar to you if you’ve ever taken a university philosophy course before, but I think it’s worth revisiting:
The greatest weight. – What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once more and innumerable times mores; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence – even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, “Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
“Eternal Recurrence”, The Gay Science
Granted, this is a rather dark and dramatic iteration of “Carpe diem.” But think about it. If you would not want to relive your life again up to this point, why not? And what would need to change for you to answer a resounding, “YES!”?