Carpe mundum~ Summa ope

A few years ago I adopted the Latin phrase carpe mundum as my motto.  It was really a joke – a friend of mine had advised me to ‘carpe diem‘, the now well used phrase that urges against wasting time.  Literally, to seize the day.

As she was talking my fingers were already flying to Google and I was searching up the Latin translation for “seize the world”.   “Forget the day,” I told her.  ”I want the whole world.  Carpe mundum!”  It became a joke between us.

Later it sort of stuck with me, not as a declaration of world domination but as what I want out of life.  It doesn’t mean I’ll get everything in the world I want.  That would be boring. To me carpe mundum simply means to go for everything – my goals should be bigger than I am.

Years later I was riding my bike through a rainstorm to get to work.  It was 3 a.m., the beginning of my day and I was already tired.  I had eight tedious hours ahead of me.  I had hurt my knee the week before and it was better but still swollen.

The thought crossed my mind that I had every excuse to go home, call in sick and go back to bed.  The thought made me angry.  ”Whatever it takes…” I thought to myself.  That became my mantra to get me through that day, and then many more afterwards.  Later I looked up a Latin translation for that.  Summa ope came up.

I don’t speak Latin but I love trying to translate random phrases found on coats of arms and old documents.  To me they are a cross between word art and a secret code.  As near as I can tell, carpe mundum, summa ope literally means to seize the world, whatever it takes.  I’m not interested in being a world leader and I don’t want to own the planet.  It doesn’t represent a need to put ownership on everything.

What I do want is to seize my world.  I don’t want to waste the part of the planet that I occupy.  I want to resist being lulled into a quiet, mediocre existence that follows ruts over striking new paths.  I want to seize every part of my world and make the best of it… whatever it takes.