This is a response to the word post “Legacy” by “The Daily Post.”
Throughout all of human history, people have been consumed with leaving a legacy, a lasting impact upon the world to be remembered by. This has been in either really simple way, such as having and raising a next generation (heirs) to the elaborate and extreme of the Ancient Egyptians and their building of the pyramids. If you look at pretty much every single civilization throughout history, almost all of them have done something or left something that has been long remembered and admired. Yet, at the same time, another thing that the Egyptians and other ancient civilizations and pretty much every reviled people/person, in history have in common is that they did not actually start out doing what made them remembered to be remembered. Or at least, they did not do so with that being at the forefront of their minds or as their main goals.
Every lasting legacy was made by people or civilizations going out into the world with specific purposes and goals in mind. The effect of actually leaving a legacy came as an aftereffect. Look at the Ancient Egyptians and the building of the pyramids, they built them, not necessarily as legacies; though they were that, but as resting places for their Pharaohs to help them on the journey to the afterlife. Look at some of the great conquerors of history, such as Alexander the Great to Napoleon; great leaders such as Churchhill, Lincoln, Reagan and so forth. All the people have one thing in common, that is that they weren’t focused on leaving a legacy, but that they went out and did things.
The lesson is that if you want to have a legacy to leave behind in this world? If you want to be remembered or have something you did, remembered? If you want to make something meaningful out of your life, then you need to go do something or be a part of something other than yourself. You also need to do this without actually planning to be remembered. Go out and join a cause or make a new cause yourself, help others, write a book, be a part of your community, whatever it is you do, you need to put your all into it and to do it regardless of how things turn out in the end. Don’t be concerned with the legacy stuff or what comes long after the moment, just the here and the now.
Those who leave legacies, don’t do so by being focused on the legacies themselves, but on the things that need to be done. You will never leave a legacy if you are so focused on it that you don’t actually go and do something or supply something. I know that is a hard thing to do, after all, we all want to make something of ourselves and to be remembered in some way. But this is how legacies are made, by not trying to make them but by letting them just come into being. Go and do what it is you want to do and let life take care of the rest.
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