What will you leave behind?
Feb 09, 2011
Think about this: 100 years from now, virtually everything and everyone on this planet will be gone. Most of the people reading this blog will be long gone. Our friends and associates will be gone. Many of our children will even be gone. Life as we know it will have moved on, leaving us behind as nothing more than a memory…a legacy of what once was.
Instead of being depressed by that knowledge, each of us should take this opportunity to ask ourselves, “What legacy will I leave behind?” What do you want to leave behind? How do you want to be remembered by future generations?
A legacy is anything handed down from the past. Your legacy is a record of how you lived your life, and of what was most important to you during that time. Maybe it was your family, or your charity work, or your business accomplishments. Maybe it was something else entirely, or all of them combined. Each of these things says something about you, about your character, about the person that you were…or were not.
Jordanism: What you do today to establish a legacy that carries forward from century to century is the most important thing you can do in your lifetime.
So create a legacy for yourself. Better yet, create a legacy for yourself that you can be proud of…a legacy that your children and your children’s children can be proud of. If what you’re doing today isn’t a reflection of how you want to be remembered, it’s time to make some serious changes. And there’s no time like the present to do it.
What will your legacy be?
What we do in life echoes in eternity.
To quote Tuco, “When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.”
This is the best blog, I have read so far!
I think the strongest legacy we can leave behind has little to do with our accomplishments, and more to do with our character and with what kind of person we were.
I seriously doubt that in 100 years “everything on this planet will be gone.” You have some sort if inside info you’re not sharing?
For me, the act of imagining the future is sometimes a difficult proposition. I think that this is mostly because I have my hands full trying to make the most out of the present. Sure I have a pretty good idea of what I want my future to be, however I’ve long since realized that a preoccupation with the future diminishes my present. And it seems to me that, except for memories, the present is all we really have. And besides, the future will get here soon enough. Jordan, I love your thoughts and reading your blog and I am going to continue to do the best I can do today, as my gut tells me to handle today…and hope my legacy is a strong one.