I did not just read a profound book. I did not just watch an inspirational movie. I did not just listen to a moving song. I did not just have an epiphany. I just sat down and realized that life is too short for small things. This already sounds cliche, but when you get home from work or school and sit down and watch TV, then surf the net, then play some games…are you really spending your precious time wisely?
What is the definition of a waste of time? Is this wasting time…me blogging? Is this important enough to be doing right now? What should I be doing? If I compare this activity of blogging to something else, does it pale in comparison? Right now, somewhere in the world, someone is getting a heart-transplant that will keep them alive, while their family waits in the waiting room just hoping and praying that their father or mother will pull through and they will see them again. Now, blogging certainly sounds like a waste of time. Should I feel guilty for that? Anything I type here, while that is going on, is obviously trite, whiny, and a complete waste of time. there is no other way to look at it, once seeing it in this light.
So what is your legacy? What is my legacy? What will I leave behind? What mark will I make? We are asked these things by authority figures during our childhood that we get it in our heads that “making a mark” or being remembered for something noble and important is a requirement before dying. So many people lie on their deathbed wondering about what is the most important. The most common answers obviously are: Family, relationships, love, appreciating life, making the best of opportunities and other cliche answers you might expect me to type here. But again, I get back to the question of what is our legacy? As individuals, as families, as a nation, as a human race? does having a legacy even matter? Does making a mark even make a difference if in 100 years nobody will remember your name except your great-great-great grand child who is giving an interview in his 90s to his grand-daughter for a school project that will be heard by 1st graders. If your legacy falls on deaf ears, no matter how you live your life, and you are forgotten in less than 100 years anyway, then why does a legacy matter? If someone goes out and “makes a difference” in the world, but it is forgotten and affects nobody 10-15+ years after the fact, then it seems to me that we must define the word “difference”
For example, if a doctor treats patients, and those patients are forgotten as well within 100 years, then what “difference” is the doctor making in the life of anyone except to put a temporary smile on the faces of the patient’s relatives, only to be washed away a few years later by a natural death?
Now, this really does seem trite in light of my earlier comparison.
It seems that the phrase ”making a difference” would be more accurately described as: ”leaving more than the typical temporary mark that lasts only a few seconds, but rather yours lasts 50-100 years, THEN you are forgotten”
This blog will be forgotten in much less time than that. What difference is this making, even if it makes YOU think harder and differently about this entire situation, it still amounts to nothing when we’re just bones in the dirt in a time when this site won’t even exist anymore.
One’s legacy is like soup. It enters your body in liquid form, passes through a series of trials and obstacles until it comes out the same in the end, only slightly altered by it’s temporary environment, yet ultimately forgettable and inconsequential. Think about it. Or don’t. It won’t change anything.
Tags: change the world, changing the world, death bed, legacy, legacy is like soup, legacy soup, making a difference, relatives, remember, soup