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I am wondering if any of you have thought about your legacy after you leave the planet. What legacy will you leave behind? Is it even important to leave a legacy of some kind behind you? As I considered retirement last fall and then actually retired I gave this some thought. There were lots of factors that were part of the decision to retire then but legacy turned out to be low on the list and inconsequential to the decision. Beyond our own families and other loved ones I think most of us don’t have a legacy. Yes, there are business people, politicians, celebrities, etc., who do leave well known legacies but the average Joe doesn’t.
A consideration of my retirement was that I wanted to make sure I had time to enjoy retirement and do things I want to do. There are people who retire early and have very long and fulfilling life experiences after that. There are also some who have some catastrophic medical conditions or accidents and are dead within a year of retirement (whether they retired young or not). If I die tomorrow I will have enjoyed the retirement I had. We just returned from a long trip out west to visit family and I have a new best buddy in our Australian shepherd (he always wants to do whatever I want to do).
All that said, I think my legacy, if I have one, is most certainly with my family. I revel in the success of my children and I am sincerely happy they are good people. I hope that I had positive and lasting impact on some of the young people I worked with in my career, but I will likely never know that.
The LDS church is very good (better than most) at providing a sense of legacy. Multigenerational LDS families with all children married in the temple or sons having served missions.
We can also feel that the success of the LDS church itself is our legacy. Every new million members or new temple announced can feel like we are leaving our mark on the world.
Exaltation (Godhood) with family extensions continuing forever. Peopling worlds with our spirit children and teaching them to ascend. It is pretty hard to compete with that.
I am personally pretty focused on helping my kids receive a quality university education. I figure that if I can help set them up with that then they will have a general advantage with which to build their own lives/legacies upon.
I am thinking that since I no longer have the Mormon legacies to rely on (being less active and disaffected from the Mormon Church), my legacy will be in the form of a public journal/memoirs where I share my life history, my philosophies of life etcetera. It will mean making some judgments about what to write, as my life history hasn’t been pretty in many respects. For example, to what extent do I go into my disaffection from Mormonism? Share the schisms in my family and problems in my marriage? One must also be sensitive to the people left behind or connected to my life — how much should I share about them? How much do I emphasize the positive spiritual experiences I had on my mission when such thinking is no longer part of my current psyche? One approach is to write the memoirs for relatives who live over 150 years from now. The focus would be more on what life is like in the late 1990’s and early to mid 2000’s. These things get forgotten from generation to generation– along with my achievements, my philosophies regarding conducting business, non-profit work, volunteering, music, etcetera. For this to happen, there would need to be some mechanism for passing the memoirs from generation to generation.
And of course, there is the legacy of my children. My wife thinks that both of my children are generally good-hearted due to my influence. So far they have grown up to be productive members of society. Both suffer from anxiety and depression, unfortunately, but I am also treated for that, and sometimes my wife needs such treatment as well, but not on a regular basis. So I don’t feel fully responsible for that.
Anyway, are their non-church legacies we can leave behind us, for those who are not likely to leave the eternal mark that Mormonism promises to the faithful?
SilentDawning wrote:
One approach is to write the memoirs for relatives who live over 150 years from now. The focus would be more on what life is like in the late 1990’s and early to mid 2000’s. These things get forgotten from generation to generation– along with my achievements, my philosophies regarding conducting business, non-profit work, volunteering, music, etcetera. For this to happen, there would need to be some mechanism for passing the memoirs from generation to generation.
We had these things called videos that were contained within plastic rectangles. When we wanted to watch a video, we had to go to the video store to rent the the plastic rectangle for a day. If we were late in returning the plastic rectangle, there would be a fine … like an overdue library book.SilentDawning wrote:
For example, to what extent do I go into my disaffection from Mormonism?
I know that any book that I would write would not have much of an audience. It is not faith promoting enough for the pro-LDS audience and not anti-LDS enough for the angry crowd. I suppose, my story would look an awful lot like the book “When bad things happen to good people.”Other than giving my children the tools to be relatively successful, I don’t think that I have any plans for a legacy. Even with saving financially as carefully as DW and I have, I have no illusions about that money doing anything cool long term. I only hope for a quiet and stable retirement and maybe the ability to leave the remainder to my inheritors as a nice little (not life changing) bonus.
My kids and others I have helped and will help. Yes. Absolutely.
Roy wrote:We had these things called videos that were contained within plastic rectangles. When we wanted to watch a video, we had to go to the video store to rent the the plastic rectangle for a day. If we were late in returning the plastic rectangle, there would be a fine … like an overdue library book.
Haha!
I used to be very concerned about not only the legacy that I would leave but also many of the things I possessed and how they would be handed down.
In my naive youth when I first joined the church I imagined future scholars pouring over my notes and thoughts on scriptures. But I, like Roy, feel that most of it is not interesting nor groundbreaking.
After having lost relatives and some parents I realize the superficiality of having “stuff”. And what is so important to me will be of much less importance to other people. Including my writings, I won’t be and am not a person of significance to anyone other than a small group of close-knit people, who after they are gone there won’t be anyone to care much about the writings of an old man. Even looking at my place and time in this moment my life would be a moment lost in obscurity. I know this is a defeatist view but I’m also a realist.
As far as the church goes, me being a convert, I didn’t have much of a preceding legacy to live up to or follow through with. And of my own children, less than half are active, even though more than half served missions.
When my first grandchild was born I realized that part of me will continue on literally on this Earth after I’m gone.
We’ve raised good humans, and hopefully they will raise good humans.
My legacy will be like my grandparents, striving to survive and doing their best, occasionally failing and probably not doing as much as they could have.
Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story Song by Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton
Quote:Let me tell you what I wish I’d known
When I was young and dreamed of glory
You have no control
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?
[snip]
And when you’re gone, who remembers your name?
Who keeps your flame?
Who tells your story?
[snip]
Oh, I can’t wait to see you again
It’s only a matter of time
Will they tell your story? (Time)
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story? (Time)
Will they tell your story? (Time)
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?
My legacy is my family. My children & grandchildren. They are not active in the church & it doesn’t matter to me. I do like Family History & I’m confident that they compare (favorably) to other members of the tribe.
On a more personal level, I hope that I leave an honorable & kind reputation. (Not perfect)
I write pieces sometimes. It winds up being essays, free-form poems, and almost-haikus. I wrote this last year and I think about it regularly. Because “attention” is a golden commodity in my household (for reasons…), it’s probably the question that I mentally ask the most about. My name is etched
In records Galore – and also
I’m Anonymous.
“What Am I Building?”
This question is translated into,
“What is Worth My Time?”
I don’t know exactly –
Children, Husband, Household, Job
A very long to-do list.
The question gets murky
When re-phrased As, “What Is
Worth My Attention?”
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