YOUR LEGACY MATTERS

A Social Commentary

Your life matters. Who you are matters. And as each day goes by we add one more block to the building called “legacy.” A man or woman cannot live without offering some sort of legacy to his or her family, friends, and society. We live and affect for good or ill every life we touch. We give or take, and in all that is called life we pass on to others something of who and what we are. What will my legacy be; what will yours be?

I keep it simple as I seek to gaze beyond my mortal probation. I imagine little children, grandchildren, asking my son and daughter what grandpa was like. “Oh he was a fine man. He loved other people and they loved him,” they will say. Then they may add things such as he was a builder, a speaker, an author, a businessman, a father, and a husband.

As I ponder on the singular vision into the future I realize that I will have no power to come to the little ones and influence them directly except for legacy; those thoughts spoken of me, and the good name I bequeath to them. But just maybe if I do it right, now while I live and breathe, I will yet live in their hearts. So I concentrate my energies, thoughts, and power on writing to influence those around me to take a fresh look at love. It is there where that true legacy I wish to leave behind, resides.

Why consider thinking about legacy? I believe the answer is found in a basic human need to “matter.” What matters most to us is signaled for all to see in the kinds of activities we participate in one day at a time. Building a legacy that matters is found in enjoying both the present moment in a state of gratitude, and finding confidence in having our name linked to a legacy we may be proud of after we are gone. Rabbi Harold K. Kushner, author of Living a Life That Matters put it this way:

“In my forty years as a rabbi, I have tended to many people in the last moment of their lives. Most of them were not afraid of dying… The people who had the most trouble with death were those who felt that they had never done anything worthwhile in their lives, and if God would only give them another two or three years, maybe they would finally get it right. It was not death that frightened them; it was insignificance, the fear that they would die and leave no mark on the world.” (Page 6, Living a Life That Matters, Kushner)

Building a “legacy” is happening even now for me as I write these words, and for you as you read them. Why not consider what can be done today? Perhaps what you can do is simply cheer someone up, give an unexpected kiss or hug. Do the unexpected for the neighbor next door. Mend a broken relationship. In time, these kinds of actions will add up to thousands of days of goodness, and you will have mattered beyond your wildest dreams!

Just as “…the brain is for getting, and the heart is for giving” as Pastor Caine in my novel The Good Heart said, use the heart to motivate you and in the end you will look back with joy knowing yours is a legacy of love and a life that really mattered.