Musings on Legacy at Twenty-Three
What if this is all the time I get?
To borrow from John Cleese, let me just begin by saying that to the best of my knowledge I am not currently dying, nor is there someone out there plotting my demise. If you have any knowledge to the contrary, please do let me know.
Until recently, my conception of legacy has been quite narrow. I’ve always thought of legacy in the sense of tangible things that you leave behind — things that you can touch, interact with, or do a Google search for. Things like a building with your name on it, your family, a product that you built, or an organization that you founded.
For the first couple decades of my life, I had no problems thinking about legacy in that way, because my plan has always been to leave that sort of stuff behind when I go…and I don’t plan on going anywhere for a long, long time. I feel confident that I will be able to accomplish my goals and build great things. Because of that confidence, I’ve always felt very comfortable with a definition of legacy that is based on tangible creations and accomplishments.
But there is one major assumption that I’ve been making for all these years that has allowed me to live comfortably with that definition of legacy: that I’m going to live long enough and have enough time to bring to life all the wonderful things that I want to leave behind.
But in reality, I have no idea how many years I’ve got left.
With that in mind, my understanding of what a legacy is becomes rather restrictive, and somewhat panic-inducing.
What if I don’t get the time that I’m counting on?
Right now, I’m well on the path to creating some of the things that I want to be remembered for when I go. But bringing those dreams to life is going to take a few years, and while I feel quite confident that I have many, many decades left of life, no one can be guaranteed that kind of time.
My mother certainly wasn’t. Her life ended at the age of 52 — enough time to accomplish many of the things on her long list of life goals, but certainly not enough years to cross everything off that list. To this day, I’m still not sure if she was able to make peace with that fact, and it’s something I think about often.
Perhaps it’s time to approach legacy from another angle, then.
Let’s operate from the understanding that I could very well get hit by a bus tomorrow. Lights out, curtains drawn, end of show.
If that happened, what would my legacy be?
To the best of my knowledge, no buildings bear my name. No articles of incorporation list me as a founder, and I am 100% certain that I don’t have any children.
If I met my proverbial maker tomorrow, my legacy would be none of those tangible, obvious things that we traditionally use to measure a life lived. You wouldn’t be able to touch it, or search for it on Google. It would be abstract and up for interpretation by those I left behind.
And that would just have to be enough.
There would be no more extra time and no more do-overs. All those amazing things that I planned on doing and making would never come to pass. So does that mean my life would have been meaningless? Would my years on earth be considered nothing more than a failed attempt, or an unfinished work?
Of course not.
So what am I missing, then?
In the years since my mother’s passing, I’ve had the great fortune of being confronted by death in all its overwhelming finality. While it hasn’t always been comfortable, it has forced me to begin forming a relationship with death, and a better understanding of the way it shapes our living years.
During this process, I’ve questioned things that I had previously taken for granted — like my conception of legacy. And over the last two years of mulling, I’ve come to the realization that legacy must be more than a balance sheet listing the sum of your creations, relationships, and accomplisments.
Buildings, awards, and the company we keep don’t define us, they are simply elements of our story. They are mile markers on the trail, not a chronicle of the trek.
I believe that legacy is something much, much simpler than we make it out to be. I truly believe that it is the series of decisions that we make on a daily, even hourly basis about how we choose to live our lives, how we choose to behave, and the way we choose to think.
It’s the choice you make to take time out of your busy day to listen to an acquaintance in crisis when they reach out for help. It’s your decision not to take out your bad day out on your loved ones. It’s your choice to not settle for anything less than excellence in your work. It’s your decision to get over your fears and live your life a little more fully.
The beauty of this conception of legacy is that it’s available to everyone, regardless of age, income level, or ability.
Whether you live to twenty, or a hundred and twenty — it’s the accumulation of all these choices that will paint the most accurate and vivid picture of the life you lived.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still working on that long list of lofty goals. But this outlook on death, and understanding of what it means to leave a legacy behind gives me the peace of mind to whittle away at that list every day, while knowing that if I don’t end up having the time I need to complete that list, my life won’t just be an unfinished work — it will have been enough.
It will be enough.
