It’s nearly midnight, and I can’t seem to sleep. I intend to wake in the early hours of tomorrow so I can continue to progress with sails full spread. Thoughts of the future, the present, and past circulate through my mind.
A year ago, I left Shanghai, to attend university in Missouri and oh how the year flew.
I formed new connections and watched as older ones collapsed. I had many firsts, and endured the staleness of living in a routine of comfort for far too long.
I learned to call yet another location home, and have further progressed down the path of personal liberation. I’ve taken several strides forward, and stumbled down several muddy hills of the past.
But in all of my personal reflection and numerous daydreams there’s a word I just can’t shake.
Legacy.
I can’t explain to you why, but I blame it on GaryVee.
Legacy doesn’t mean that you have to go down in the history books, or have your own T.V show. To me, legacy means that when you pass your spirt lives on.
To leave a legacy you don’t have to be perfect you just have to try.
To leave a legacy you don’t have to change the minds of everyone just a select few.
To leave a legacy you don’t have to end world hunger just feed a single soul.
To leave a legacy you don’t have to have it all just share what you know.
To leave a legacy you don’t need money or fame, just a wealthy heart.
Your life, your gifts, are far more important than you will ever know. Are you expressing them your existence or are you hiding behind your shield?
To leave a legacy all you must do is be kind, gentle, and care.
What inspires you? What are you living for?
Legacy. That’s what drives me. How about you?
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Bud.
I could certainly do more to leave a larger legacy, although I do not think about what I leave behind. There is some of my expression I don’t release publicly so often.
I hear that about Gary V. He does make us think a bit about what matters and what doesn’t matter, like when he talks about how old people tell him they didn’t care how much money they made but how much time they spent with family and friends. Having an impact would probably fit in there also.
Sharing what we know is not made to seem cool but it can boost another person a huge amount.
Hey Bud,
Since I didn’t see this post when it first went up, I figured I’d take a whack at it now
On legacy:
To me, legacy is entirely a result of what you CREATE. That’s it. Your legacy is what you created on this earth and left behind for other people.
I’m going to go all one-sided Socratic Dialogue on you, so bear with me:
In order to create, you must bring into existence something that didn’t exist before your action. This means, that whatever you create is necessarily a SEPARATE entity from yourself (after all, you are in existence before and after your act of creation, so you didn’t “create” yourself).
But this doesn’t mean that you should take me literally; creation doesn’t mean making tangible objects that you can see and touch. No. Creation also means making relationships, sharing conversations, thinking up ideas and spreading them.
Creation is anything you do that stretches beyond yourself. Even a simple conversation can be as artful as any painting or sculpture.
However, there are a few things that aren’t creation: to me, doing things like eating, working out, and meditation is not creating, as they affect yourself and only yourself.
Not that not creating isn’t bad. It’s necessary to have downtime and be able to work on ourselves, so we may create better and maintain a balance. If we try creating too much, we get burnt out; if we don’t create enough, we start losing energy, as we have an inborn creative instinct.
So, going all the way back to legacy: your legacy is the sum of your effect on your environment, as we create in order to change our environments.
If we want to make our legacies incredible, then, we must recognize that we are creating in every moment that we choose to interact with the world, and make our actions, or creations, as good as we can, and give them as much attention and heart as if we were creating a masterpiece, a work of art for the world to see.
Okay, I’m done rambling
However, there are a few things that aren’t creation: to me, doing things like eating, working out, and meditation is not creating, as they affect yourself and only yourself.
^ Is that true?
Sometimes incredible is taking one step.
I didn’t say they weren’t useful or necessary – I do all three, every day – but they don’t contribute to our legacy DIRECTLY, as other forms of creation do.
You got me?
In meditation’s case, it makes me leave a better legacy, sure – because it makes me create better. But if I sat in my room meditating all day and night, would I leave a legacy? Hell no.
So that’s what I mean.