I'll never forget when my dad gave the eulogy at his dad's funeral. My dad is a highly experienced public speaker, but it's no small thing to try to sum up the life of a great man. And as I sat in the pew of the Lutheran church where the funeral was held, I realized that that's really what a legacy is - it's the summation of your life. When it's all said an done, your legacy is what your life boils down to.
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| Photo courtesy of mbell1975 at flickr.com |
So how do you leave a great legacy? Is there a formula? Can you even be intentional about it, or do you just do what you can and hope for the best? And if you are able to be intentional about leaving a legacy... how would you go about it?
The truth is, every man and every woman is capable of leaving a legacy of greatness. Every living breathing person has the opportunity to create a lasting impact on this world. And more people leave legacies than we realize.
Legacies you wouldn't put your name on
Some people leave behind legacies that you'd never want to put your name on. Ted Bundy, for example, definitely left and impression on the world. His homicidal spree shocked an entire generation, and today he's remembered... but not for the kinds of things that anyone wants to be remembered for.
And while a legacy of bad deeds isn't desirable, there are other legacies you don't want to leave behind either. A legacy of failure would be an example of this. Nobody wants to be remembered for their mistakes.
The truth is, while we all want to leave behind different kinds of legacies, we all pretty much want the same thing. Not everyone feels the need to shake the foundations of the earth with our lives. Some of us just want to help shape the next generation, or even the next generation within our own families. But whether your shooting for a big complex legacy or a small simple one, the goal is the same for all of us.
We want to know that our time on this earth counted for something greater than ourselves and we left this planet a little better than we found it.
If that's true of you, then you'll be interested to know that there are exactly7 elements involved in leaving a great legacy. And every man who has lived a life worth remembering has made incredible strides in one or more of these areas.
The 5 essential elements of a great legacy
Discontent. People who leave great legacies, whether famous or not, seem to be characteristically discontent. It's not that they're a bunch of whiners who couldn't cope. They're the type of people who just aren't willing to settle for anything less than their own personal best.
As you cultivate your own legacy, look for the thing in your life that you just simply aren't satisfied with. That may be the very place for you to begin cultivating your legacy.
Willing to fail. I don't know of a single figure in history who's legacy doesn't involve failure. In fact, many great men and women are marked by the things they learned from their failures. If you're working to build a legacy but you're afraid to fail, rest assured you will fail. But it's nothing to worry about, it just means your human. Get back up and keep moving forward.
They done well. Some people impact the world by simply doing great things. Ghandi did a lot of great things, but the most powerful were his hunger strikes to combat the caste system in India. Today, 65+ years after his death, Mahatma Ghandi is still remembered for the incredible things he did during his life. In fact, nearly every major city in India has a road named after him.
Whether your legacy will be left to your children or to the masses it's important to remember that what you do and what you don't do will matter. If you're a great man or woman while everyone is looking, and a piece of garbage while they're looking away, you'll eventually be found out. And then your legacy will be worth far less.
Words sweet word. There are some phrases that, when said, simply conjure up an image or a name in your mind. One such phrase would be, "I have a dream," which immediately brings Martin Luther King Jr. to mind. Another would is, "Four score and seven years ago," Which should bring a tall skinny Abraham Lincoln to mind.
This just goes to show that the common colloquialism, "it's not what you say but how you say it," isn't true. The reality is, it's what you say and how you say it. Whether you want to leave a great legacy in the livest of your children or in the lives of an entire nation, you have to have control over your own tongue. If you consistently find stuff slipping out that makes you blush, then you'll want to slow down and think your words out more clearly.
A stubborn refusal to give up. When you look through history, it's often not the men who die for their causes who are the most impressive, but the ones who live for them without giving up. Martin Luther was a great example of this. Unlike many of his historical religious counterparts who were martyred half way through their lives, Luther lived and maintained his convictions until he died at the age of 62 (which was pretty good for a guy who lived during the 1500s)
A heart 3 sizes to large. Some people's heats shine through their lives so brilliantly that even when their heart has stopped, people still see the light. Mother Theresa was a great example of this. Her natural love for people spilled out of her to everyone she came in contact with. She had a natural compassion for people that made a vow of poverty a natural choice.
What's unique about the heart is that it's the seat of authenticity. If you're interested in contributing to something greater than yourself, it's wise to set out to do it with an honest heart. There are men and women who have made much greater contributions to poverty than Mother Theresa, but they don't have the same authenticity of heart that she did.
Thriving on an idea. The William Wallace Monument stands several stories high in Stirling, Scotland. At the very top is a display case with Wallace's sword in it (it's about 6 feet all and majorly awesome). And while William Wallace is known for a lot of the great things he did, his legacy lays in his utter belief in freedom.
If you want to leave a legacy of greatness, you have to rise above yourself and stand for the intangibles. These are the things we can't see or touch, but that men and women are willing to die to protect. People mock idealists, but they are often the ones who's lives reach out and impact those beyond their physical reach.
For what things do you want people to remember you? Please leave a comment with your thoughts in the section below.
Warmly,
Tim
Your post is full of good thoughts that give solid guidance, Tim. One additional thing that occurs to me is that many people who left great legacies weren't necessarily trying to leave a great legacy. Rosa Parks may be one of those. I doubt that on December 1, 1955, when she refused to sit in the 'colored section' on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, she was thinking "I want to leave a great legacy". Rather, she was just living through her God-given passion for civil rights and was willing to suffer for the cause, which she did. Also, I'm pretty sure that Moses, at least at first in his life, wasn't setting out to have a great legacy, but he knew what he had to do to join himself to the people of his birth. Then, even though he had a speech impediment, God began talking with him and using him in a way that set the future of the nation of Israel and kept them focused on what God was doing. I think that if we want to leave a great legacy, we can do it without trying to leave a great legacy. Rather, we can focus on what God has called us to, no matter how ill-equipped we might feel to fulfill the calling. After all, it's not our greatness that makes a legacy. It's what He does through us.
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