Legacy

Certain times of year or moments in life make me think about something I'm probably not supposed to be concerned with until some midlife crisis: legacy. Such times may be the holidays, with family traditions, or the end of a semester as friends graduate and enter careers, or as friends and family bear and raise children, or friends and acquaintances writing books or starting web sites that seem to make an impact, or as I quit a job and look for another. While it occasionally weighs on me a bit, as it did this last holiday season, it's nothing heavy right now, just incidental to some other things I was writing.

Whether the truth is that I will eventually pass from one form of existence to another, or will be reabsorbed into a universal energy with or without consciousness, or will simply cease to function and become a heap of cells to be reorganized, I want to leave the world better than I found it, as a whole or person-by-person. I hope to have some assurance, as I face that passage (if I have time to "face" it), that I have truly made a difference for the better more than I have either made a negative impact or been an inconsequential player.

By my age, many people have a spouse and children they can look to as not only their greatest source of personal happiness and fulfillment but as their greatest legacy. The traditions they build, the habits and principles and teachings they pass on to their children, the light they bring into their sweetheart's eyes when they do something kind for them or, if they're lucky, just walk into the room. The things they teach each other in their most intimate lifetime companionship. *buzz* Don't have it.

By my age, many people have a successful career in which they can identify how they've made significant contributions to their business, their industry, or their field of study. They can say, "I created that fund," "I started that program," "I wrote that influential dissertation," or "I built that house." They often have something to show. And their efforts will have a ripple effect. *buzz* Don't have that either.

But there are other ways I have contributed. Many friends and acquaintances at church have told me how much they enjoyed my Sunday School lessons, or how a talk I gave in church impacted them, or how my example of obedience and faithfulness strengthened them. Hm. That seems pretty distant now, mostly in the past. What else do I have?

Let's see, there's my relationship with my nieces and nephews. I've helped raise a couple of them in some ways, though looking back, I feel bad for not having done better with them or not having enough patience. I was a pre-teen when I started, though, so how much could one expect? I've been a fun uncle here and there, but I've not been very steady in presence or involvement. I live far away from all of them now and have relatively little contact with them. I love them, but I feel like the uncle who just pops in and out. I should probably try to figure out how to improve that.

I've helped build a nonprofit organization in a small way, and it's a cause I believe is valuable even though I've distanced myself a bit from it recently. I want to see it succeed because it fills a need. Hopefully, it does succeed, and I believe it will, even if it hits some rough patches, but even if it dissolved, I'd believe it was valuable while it lasted, so no regrets there.

I have some close friends I've loved being available for and whose company I've benefited from, and whom I hope have benefited from mine. We've shared our triumphs and failures, hopes and fears, strengthened each other and hurt each other, but in the end, I value those friendships and hope they've valued mine. But there's more to it than that. I'd like to be able to look back at friendships and have some confidence that each person I've loved or been a friend to has been better off because of it, that they've been a better person in some significant way, not just that we "had fun" or "enjoyed each other's company" or "found each other's ideas fascinating." I want to help people be better versions of themselves. I just can't be sure I've done that. It's not an easy thing to identify, let alone to do. Hm, I'll let that be a motivator for the future.

I occasionally wonder what might be spoken at my memorial service, and I'd like to make my life such that the room, whether small or large, and whether seventy years from now or next week, would be filled with people who were grateful and happy they'd known me because their lives were truly better because of it, even after we'd moved on or I'd lost contact with them.

I hope that my thoughts shared on my blog, or my photos, or the spreadsheet I created to help a friend maintain her finances, or the weeds cleared from a conservation park in Florida, or the workplace changes I proposed and which were adopted to improve efficiency and customer relations, or the poem I wrote in junior high, or the lessons I taught in church or classrooms, or the gatherings I organized during college to bring people together and provide a place where all could feel welcome, or the games and skills I taught my nieces and nephews and friends' children, or holding a friend who was sobbing even though I was having a hard time and wanted a shoulder myself, or staying up late or giving time during a busy day to listen to someone who truly needed a sounding board...I hope all of these have made small differences. Sometimes, it's easy to forget the little things. I hope these have enriched someone's life at least a little because I know they've enriched my own.

I watched the movie "Milk" a few weeks ago, and there was a line in it that stood out to me both when it was spoken early in the movie and when it was repeated at the end: "Forty years old and I haven't done a thing that I'm proud of." Well, I've never published a book, or owned a company, or spearheaded a great cause, or saved a life, or had someone tell me I was singly responsible for improving the course of their life, but when the character spoke this line, I sat there and thought, "I'm really happy that I can say I have done a lot of things I'm proud of, or more accurately, a lot of things I believe have been worthwhile and productive beyond my own life. I won't be in his shoes at 40, as long as I keep looking for opportunities to serve and create."

My challenge may be to not get so caught up in each incidental opportunity that I never progress personally or professionally to a point where I can make a bigger difference on a grander scale. So I try to keep that in mind. Nevertheless, in the meantime, it's good to remember that maybe being influential doesn't require a grand scheme, flashy fame, or money and power, but can be seen in the everyday person you are and the way you treat everyone around you, not just those who treat you well in return or who offer you some emotional or monetary compensation for your kindness, as well as the time and energy you dedicate to the relationships that are of the greatest worth, which aren't always the most exciting. But heck, the small stuff along with some of the big stuff would be nice to achieve, wouldn't it? :-)

I've taken a step back from a lot of things as I felt a need to retreat a bit while I sort some things out for myself. Maybe it's my own personal "walkabout" as someone said the other night. But wherever it leads me, my hope is to live, borrowing the words B. H. Roberts used to describe the life of Joseph Smith, "in crescendo". Not in notoriety or in grandeur, but in personal growth and in positive personal and intellectual impact and influence, whatever form that comes in. I'm not sure I can feel right living any other way. I want to leave the world better than I found it, and people better than I found them, even if my efforts seem piddly and even occasionally misguided. And hopefully, there will be plenty of fun and enjoyment along the way as well.