Legacy?

Before we discuss whether you should work for your legacy, or not, we must define what is legacy, especially, in the context we’re talking about today.

So, let’s begin with “what” is legacy. In simple words, it’s what you leave for your future generations, i.e, what will stay after you die that can be useful to the future generations.

Have you thought about it? Have you thought about what or if at all you want to leave anything for the world after you’re gone? So, there are two sides to this story. On one side, some people insist that we should think about our legacy. And at the other, people argue that one should not worry about legacy. They ask questions like, why do you care for what happens after you’re dead, it doesn’t change anything for you, does it? We must be here now, and not worry about the future, etc.

So here’s my take, Legacy may not matter to you, but it matters to society.

It’s not about how you feel about it, it’s not about what you get after you’re dead. It’s not about you wanting to make people think about you in a certain way, it’s about making people feel and think in a great way after you’re gone. It’s not about YOU. It’s not self-centered or a selfish act. Legacy is a selfless act! Legacy is about serving! Legacy is about serving and gifting people what you can through your skill, experience, and wisdom.

ASK WHAT

That’s why, I want you to ask yourself, what do you want to leave for humanity?

We talked about death in the first blog and then in the blog: A life compass, and we’re talking about death again. If you die now, will the world notice? And if it does, does it have something valuable to hold on to that you’ve left behind apart from the memories? Something that only you could gift to and in this entire humanity. What do you want people to ponder about and work towards after you’re gone?

ASK HOW

Then ask yourself how are you going to leave a particular impression or make people think about any particular aspect of life you wish they work on.

With this question, you’ll not only have to ponder about what you’d like to convey to people but also, you’ll have to ponder about what skill you are good at. How you can, through your work, convey whatever that you want to convey?

ASK WHY

Forget about legacy, if you’re not clear about anything, start by asking yourselves this powerful question – Why are you doing what you’re doing? [We asked this same question in the blog – WHY DO YOU CREATE WHAT YOU CREATE?]

Legacy is the bridge between the stages of PASSION and PURPOSE. Passion is only directed to yourself and purpose is completely directed outwards. Thinking about legacy helps you to think about your purpose.

[Truly and honestly, there isn’t any fixed purpose to anyone’s life. And ‘purpose’ is not just an easy topic to just leave it half said here. So, I’ll definitely be writing deeply about ‘purpose’ in a different blog.]

MEMORY & INSPIRATION FADES

The ultimate legacy is how we live our life, we know that. If we live with great virtues and live a life of fulfillment, that’s the best legacy. But the problem with that is, one, nobody is watching/observing you. And two, if someone observes the great life of fulfillment you lived, memories and hence inspiration fades. So you’ll need to provide people with something that they can refer back to again and again, repeatedly so that they won’t lose track of those great virtues and they don’t have to reinvent great lessons that you had to learn the hard way.

PONDER

So all in all, through this blog I want to encourage you to think about your ‘Legacy’. In other words, the way you’ll continue to serve humanity even after you’re gone!

The ultimate intent is liberation. But we don’t know when that’ll happen, so meanwhile, your intent should be to serve people, as much as possible, in your own way. Find that way, and start serving!

Thank You,

Sanath Kumar Naibhi