After you've finished working and raising your children, comes longed for retirement. No more early morning commute, no more snarky boss. You can do whatever you choose. So, you sleep-in, spend the whole morning eating breakfast and reading the paper. Then perhaps go out, shop and meet friends for lunch. Afternoon nap takes care of an hour or three. Soon, the sun is going down and it's dinner time and then a bit of TV or a Netflix movie before sleep.
Is this how you want to spend the rest of your life?
Perhaps while it's a novelty, you do. Later, and if you have the extra means, you decide to travel or check off your bucket list. You catch up visiting family and friends. And then what? Perhaps you decide to sell your big house and buy a condo in a 50+ building. Reduce your footprint before you turn to dust. And then what? What will people remember about you? What will you leave behind?
Perhaps while it's a novelty, you do. Later, and if you have the extra means, you decide to travel or check off your bucket list. You catch up visiting family and friends. And then what? Perhaps you decide to sell your big house and buy a condo in a 50+ building. Reduce your footprint before you turn to dust. And then what? What will people remember about you? What will you leave behind?
If this is important, perhaps you need to think about leaving a legacy. Not just money that's left after you're done with your bucket list and after you've sold your house and given away the extra furniture you no longer need. By legacy, I mean something more.
When I think of my ancestors, I am disappointed at the legacy they left. My grandfather on my mother's side, left a small house and garden in the country when he died of lung cancer. His first wife died young in the war. His second wife raised children. I don't know anything else about them - my mother rarely spoke of that time.
My grandfather on my father's side died in a concentration camp for his involvement in the Polish rebellion. My grandmother lived a quiet life and besides some hand made dried flower pictures, didn't leave much. What the war didn't destroy, she left behind when she moved to Canada with my parents. In Canada, she helped my aunt with housework and watched T.V. in the evenings.
My parents similarly didn't leave much. My mother, a few knit sweaters (she was a wonderful knitter) and my father a book of quotes that he gathered and that was full of hate and anger at the world. My sister and I threw it out as soon as he passed on. They left a condominium and some furniture behind but nothing really meaningful that changed the world in some way. Sad.
On the other hand, I look at the world and people I admire and wonder what some of them had contributed. Politicians, philanthropists, business people, doctors, judges, movie stars, sporting heroes. Some of those contributions had a negative impact on the world as well as a positive one: Einstein for example, who invented the atom bomb. Or Marie Curie-Sklodowska who studied radium. Or Nobel who invented dynamite.
So, is it better to live quietly and go gently into the night leaving as little as possible behind? Or is it better to go out with a bang and change the world, be remembered, have a statue built or a monument to remind the world of your passing through this world?
And what is worthy of leaving behind? A tree planted? A Mona Lisa? A musical score of Joy to the world? War and Peace? Yes. Yes. Yes.
Do not go gently into the night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And leave something behind.
Whatever you love to do, do it well and pass it on. If you are a good cook, leave a book of your recipes. If you are handy with tools, leave a birdhouse or a coffee table you have built. If you are a knitter, give away scarves and hats and write down the patterns.
And so, as I fill in the blanks in my daily journal that sits open on the table, daily thicker on the left and thinner on the right, I ponder how I can contribute in a meaningful way knowing by now that I am no Leonardo, Beethoven or Tolstoy. Through my writing, I hope to inspire others to also stretch their imagination and do something, anything well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you lived and lived well." - Did I contribute something meaningful? How can I use my gifts and talents and the things I love to do, to improve the world and lives of others?
Leave a legacy.
