Legacy

Legacy. What is a legacy?
It’s planting seeds in a garden you’ll never get to see.

A legacy is both our simplest and most complex desire in life. A legacy allows us to escape the one inescapable part of life: the end.

As living creatures, we are bound by death, but our ideas are not. While children are the “simple” biological version of a legacy, you don’t live on unless you help to raise those children. Simply put, raising a child is teaching them what you’ve learned from your experiences in life. A child raised with wisdom will carry on that wisdom. Parents live on through the memory and wisdom of their children.

In today’s world, we have moved beyond basic biology when it comes to recognizing legacies. A business, a project, a work of art, even a society can last significantly longer than the lifespan of the person who thought up the idea.

It is not enough to come up with an idea to have a legacy. You must follow through by putting in the time necessary to make your idea a reality. As mortal beings, all we have is our time and we can never get back what we spend.

Putting in the time to raise a child, start a business, or complete a project is essentially trading your life for the sake of an idea that can out live you. As long as your ideas live on, your legacy survives.

I don’t want to start a business nor do I want to raise a child, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want anything to live on beyond me. Ideas are constantly bouncing around in my mind. I think they are good ideas and I think they can be very helpful for a lot of people.

If my ideas can be known, that’s good enough. If my thoughts have the potential to transfer to other people, that’s good enough. If I never get to see the fruits of the seeds I plant, that’s good enough.

With that said, here are a bunch of ideas that are always on my mind. Some help me get through difficult moments in my life, others remind me of the good in this world when it can be hard to find.

These are just seeds in the ground, who knows what will sprout.