Legacy

When people talk about their legacy or leaving a legacy, they are thinking about the future. They’re looking towards future generations and what will be left behind, or maybe even a little selfishly, how they can influence the way they’ll be remembered.

But the only legacy you have any real influence over is the one that you have today. It doesn’t require large trust funds, bestowing your family name on buildings, or anything else. All that matters is what you do today, in this moment.

Let me explain.

Think about your great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents. Chances are, you don’t know very much about them, if anything at all. They survived all kinds of trials, lived in a world that looks completely different than our own, and all that lasts is a handful of stories if they’re lucky. But they don’t get to pick the stories that are passed down; people in the present choose what those stories are.

Even if we think about very famous people, the stories about them that persist are the ones that people after them chose to tell, not necessarily the ones they themselves would have selected to be remembered.

No matter how hard you try, you have no control over what your legacy will be. You can leave behind a fortune to sustain your family for generations, but you have no control over how it’s actually used. You can pass down an estate or a business, but you have no idea if it’ll be well-managed or sold off.

Legacies are fickle and ultimately completely out of our hands. But you have the power to BE the way you want to be remembered TODAY.

If you want to be remembered as someone who was philanthropic, start that today. Don’t wait until you can set up a foundation. Make a difference in people’s lives right now. If you want to be remembered as a family person, start spending time with your family now. Get to know what they hope to achieve in their lifetimes, and see how you can support that. If you have important stories about your family and heritage, write them down or make recordings about them, and pass down traditions that have lasted through the decades. You can’t know with certainty that the traditions will continue, but you can create memories in the process.

For example, in our family, my Nana crocheted stockings for everyone when they were born or married into the family. Now, the tradition of making the stockings has passed to me. Do I know that there will be a crocheter in the future to take it on? No, just like my Nana didn’t know either. But I love keeping her spirit alive by making the stockings, and it gives us all a moment every Christmas to remember Nana and swap stories to keep her legacy going.

Think about your own parents or grandparents, people who you have known within your own lifetime. If someone asked you what their legacy is, what would you say?

The idea of a legacy is stressful to many, and if you’re reading this, you may be one of them. But truly, it doesn’t have to be.

Your legacy is who you are right at this point in time. You already have a legacy! If you like what that looks like, keep on doing what you’ve been doing. If you don’t like it, then the good news is you always have time to change course.

Be 1% more certain what you want your legacy to be today and take one step towards making it happen.