There is a lovely French phrase, joie de vivre. Literally, it means the “joy of living” but it describes something bigger than simply being happy. It is an enthusiasm for life. Good food, good company, adventure, curiosity and taking pleasure in the fact that, against some fairly extraordinary odds, you are here.
The Romans had their own version. In 23 BC, the poet Horace wrote carpe diem. We usually translate it as “seize the day”, although the literal meaning is closer to “pluck the day”, as you might pluck a ripe piece of fruit. His point was simple: enjoy today rather than putting too much faith in an uncertain tomorrow.
More than 2,000 years later, we shortened the whole philosophy to four words: You Only Live Once.
Mae West probably put it best: “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
The phrase inspired the Lonely Planet book You Only Live Once, which takes a refreshing approach to adventure. Rather than presenting a bucket list requiring a passport, six months off work and a healthy bank account, it looks at what you could do with an hour, a day, a week, a month or a year.
And that got me thinking…
Adventure doesn’t have to mean climbing Everest. Sometimes you just need to do something new, unplanned or different.
What could you do with an hour?
Start small. Take an hour completely for yourself. Have the long shower. Wash your hair. Do your nails. Get a proper shave. Cook the recipe you’ve always wanted to try.
Better yet, leave the house. Drive the scenic route home. Take a book to the beach and read for an hour. Grab a drink and sit by the ocean watching the waves roll in. Hike a local bush track. Go for a swim on your lunch break. Have a picnic somewhere you would normally drive straight past.
If that sounds too tame, make your hour memorable. Take an ice bath. Get a tattoo. Try a painting class. Have a sailing lesson. Watch turtles from the shore or swim with the fish. Cook something you caught or grew yourself.
Set the alarm ridiculously early and witness the dawn. Go and hear a local band at the pub, a choir, an orchestra or a musician you’ve never heard before. Harness the wind with kite surfing, or simply make paper aeroplanes with the kids to see whose stays airborne longest.
Adventure doesn’t have to be impressive. It just has to make you feel alive.
What could you do with an entire day?
Go to a festival. Take a spontaneous road trip to a country town you’ve never visited. Watch the sunrise and the sunset on the same day.
Face a fear. Hold a snake at a wildlife park. Pick up a frog. Climb something. Get on a boat if boats make you nervous. The idea isn’t to be reckless; it is to discover whether something you’ve spent years avoiding is actually as frightening as you’ve imagined.
Or reinvent yourself for a day. Head to an op shop with a budget and find a completely new outfit. Try a hairstyle you’ve never dared to wear. Dress up for absolutely no reason and take yourself somewhere nice.
Build a tiny raft from sticks and see whether it floats. Go looking for “buried treasure”. Paint a landscape badly and proudly. Arrange a dancing date. Go to a sporting match and yell yourself hoarse.
And if climbing a volcano has always sounded like the sort of thing you’d need to fly overseas to do, remember we have an ancient volcanic landscape right here around Bundaberg. Sometimes the adventure you’ve been dreaming about is closer than you think.
What could you do with a week?
A week gives you enough time to become dangerous.
Pack the car and go looking for Queensland’s ‘Big’ Things. Swap houses with a friend and pretend you’re a tourist in somebody else’s town. Learn to dance. Learn to scuba dive. Have a surfing lesson. Try sailing or skating.
Find a strange world record and attempt it. You probably won’t become the next record holder, but you’ll have a better story than, “I watched Netflix all weekend.”
What could you do with a month?
A month is long enough to change something.
Train for a running event. Give up something you rely on too much. Learn to sew, knit, grow vegetables, climb, paint or play a new game. Volunteer at an op shop, sporting club or community organisation.
Build the treehouse you’ve talked about for years, then actually sleep in it.
The goal isn’t necessarily to master anything. Being a beginner is half the fun. Adults become very good at doing what they already know how to do. There is something wonderfully humbling about putting yourself in a situation where you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.
And what could you do with a year?
This is where “one day” starts becoming this year.
Take flying lessons. Learn another language. Write the book you’ve been talking about. Take a sabbatical. Learn an instrument. Start the business. Walk a famous trail. Climb every mountain, literally or figuratively.
But don’t make the mistake of believing a life well lived has to be packed with enormous achievements.
Carpe diem was never really about recklessness.
YOLO doesn’t have to mean jumping out of aeroplanes, selling everything you own or waking up wondering why there is a tattoo of a llama on your right butt cheek. It can simply mean don’t keep postponing your life.
We are remarkably good at saying “one day”. One day I’ll learn to surf. One day I’ll take Mum on that road trip. One day I’ll paint. One day I’ll visit that little town. One day I’ll watch the sunrise. One day I’ll write the book.
Eventually, you run out of one days. So pluck this one while it’s ripe.
You only live once, But you get an awful lot of days to have a crack at it.
Published September 2026 Chitchat Newspaper.