What’s your legacy?

As we go about our busy lives filled with the hustle and bustle of our day-to-day, we rarely get a minute to ourselves to reflect on deeper matters. If we are not rushing around between work and family obligations, workouts and social commitments, we are using the little free time we have for simpler pleasures in life. But what if we took a break from all this to stop and think about our legacy?

Legacy can mean several things. For one, software developers will most likely associate the concept with outdated but often irreplaceable code that sends chills down their spines and sends them running in the opposite direction. For most others, however, legacy probably means something more generic: what you leave behind once you are gone. It’s quite common to immediately think of tangible, material goods that we connect with the word “legacy”. We often picture the legacy of a great aristocrat as wealth and a great estate left behind for posterity; the collection of money and expensive objects organised into neat piles. And while legacy can most certainly refer to these, we also often associate the concept with what famous entrepreneurs built to last: an empire they created out of thin air to survive them long after they’re gone. That’s why we so often hear talk about Steve Jobs’ legacy in Apple – the world would be a very different place had he not left his work behind like he did.

Despite that almost instantaneous association of this concept with material inheritance, it is clear (and can be easily confirmed by a simple Google search) that it means so much more than that. If you try to think of people with great legacy, it is not necessarily the wealthy who left a fortune behind who come to mind. Instead, we recall names like Dr. Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein… People who made massive contributions as scientist or humanitarians and without whose work the world as we know it would not be the same. We aren’t short of wonderful examples of people who created something truly life-changing not just for themselves and their contemporaries but everyone who came after them. Their legacy, although intangible, is well-known and much appreciated by most of the world – and nobody would say it’s less important just because it cannot be expressed in a clear financial value. If anything, we acknowledge their contributions even more – because they gave us something nobody else could have. (Of course, there are less obvious but just as impressive instances of legacies: the janitor who saved money all his life and left it to high school students as a college fund is a wonderful example.)

Despite the differences in the legacies I’ve mentioned so far, there is one thing that they all have in common: they are all post-mortem. For some reason, we immediately pair the concept with the idea that only those who are gone can have a legacy. Going even further, we hardly ever think about our own legacy until we get older and/or have a near-death experience. (Of course, there are people out there who live their lives conscious of what they will leave behind, openly directing their activities towards forming their future legacy – but those are few and far between.) Why is that? Why do we think that our contribution to the world can only be reflected upon and evaluated once we feel that we don’t have much time left? I personally think it’s a valid idea to ponder at any point in life. Why wait until there’s almost no time left to change what we leave behind? I truly believe that the sooner we can think about our own legacy, the more conscious we can be of it – and the more we can shape it.

I am convinced that everyone can have a wonderful legacy. There’s no need for all of us to make incredible, life-changing scientific discoveries or change the course of history via championing civil rights (although we are all more than welcome to try!). In my opinion, legacy is not just about the great figures or the transformative discoveries and inventions. Rather, it is about how fully we live our lives and the impact we have on those of others. We may not be remembered as the millionaire who solved homelessness or the researcher who found the cure to cancer – nonetheless, we may live on as a thoughtful, kind, supportive human being in the minds and hearts of the people whose lives we touched. Leaving a better world behind than how you found it is the most awesome legacy to have, whether that means tutoring your neighbour’s kids in English for free or always feeding the stray cats near your school or being a wonderful and attentive spouse/friend/daughter/father. In fact, it was Maya Angelou who said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” What is that if not a n incredible opportunity for a legacy?

At the same time, while positively impacting other people’s lives and making them feel valued, loved and appreciated is certainly a worthwhile way to live our lives, it is not the only approach to having a valuable legacy. Any life driven by meaning, purpose and strong core values is a life well-lived and a shining example of the concept. Legacy, in this case, can be becoming a role model for the future generations – and example to look up to and to follow. Once again, there’s no need to be a world-class journalist, the next Bill Gates or the person who single-handedly saved some rare species from extinction. It is more than enough to be true to one’s own authentic self and have a life filled with aspirations and guided by what one believes in (spiritually or otherwise). Being able to look back on our lives and thinking “I’m glad I did what I did and how I led my life” is a genuinely underappreciated trait of a true legacy. While it might not seem earth-shattering, others may well look at it and feel inspired to implement changes in their own lives to discover their true purpose and live accordingly.

All of that makes me think: what will my legacy be? Although I cannot know it for sure, I hope that I will be able to help many, many people in my career by supporting them through their personal and professional growth. I also wish that those with whom I will have crossed paths remember me as a kind, empathetic and witty person who cared for them. In addition, I hope wish that my courage to go on a (literal and figurative) self-discovery journey and my drive to chase after what I really want inspired others to do the same and set themselves free.

The funny thing about legacies is, though, that we are not around to see it. All we can do is lead a life we truly believe in and hope that our lives will be remembered the way we intended them to. The wonderful thing about realising the importance of our legacy is that it gives us something irreplenishable and irreplaceable: time. Time to make changes and adjust in order to make our lives into something we are proud of – and something others may look at as an inspiration to improve their own lives. So… What’s your legacy?