Your False Conception of Legacy
Every human’s attempt to escape death.
Good morning everyone,
What a term it is; Legacy. Something that most people strive to leave behind when they die. No one wants to leave this earth knowing that everything they did was to no avail. Most people in the context of death ask themselves “ how will they remember me”.
But who is they? And why does it matter in the first place.
Alex Hormozi on a recent podcast of “The School of Greatness” said:
The desire for legacy is only an attempt to escape death.
Really think about that for a second. Your desire to leave something behind that is bigger than you is only an insecurity about your own mortality.
Why your Legacy doesn’t Matter
Lets face it, you are going to die. There is no way around it.
But what is it about humans obsession with leaving something behind them that will live long past themselves?
Statues have been made, Buildings labeled, and people named after one and other all in the vain efforts to escape death.
But what people that chase legacies fail to remember is that on a long enough time horizon, there is no legacy that matters. Over the course of the next 1,000 years, your bloodline is going to get split over and over again to the point where we would even consider those people at the end of the line related to you.
If its not generational wealth your looking to leave your future predecessors then wouldn’t the statue be a good fit?
No (unless people remembering you that have no significance to your life what so ever matters to you)
Lets take that time horizon and stretch over 100,000 years. By then, the earth and everything you know about it will be completely unrecognizable. ( who knows if humans even make it that far) Your statue will be gone, the money you saved and compounded spent and destroyed by people that knew you less and less and less.
You see in the grand scheme of things, not a whole lot matters, especially your small efforts to leave something behind that will live beyond you. Because inevitably everything goes.
What you Should Leave Behind
For many people this is going to rub them the wrong way. I was one of those people at first too.
To hear someone tell you that everything your doing right now won’t last.
While that might be true, its not to say that what you are doing right now doesn’t matter at all. It does, and so do you.
What I am trying to portray to you is to not invest in the physical and material side of life as much as you might want to, because as we know, it is limited in its capacities.
What does matter and what you should leave behind (in my opinion) are the lessons you teach and the people you impact.
Nobody at your funeral will go up and talk about how they are so glad they have a new car now instead of you. (Maybe they will be glad thats not the point) The point is that eventually that car breaks down and all they are really left with is their memory of you.
The best gift you can give someone is your complete presence. I mean think about how rare that is in today society, when we are constantly bombarded by texts, advertisements, and social media.
Not only that but, have good intentions. You should never treat a person as the means to another end. Only as an end themselves.
This advice is a lot less flashy than naming a building or creating a statue of yourself so that people will remember who you are for years and years to come.
However, I think that at the end of your life when you are the most concerned about wha you are leaving behind, you can sit peacefully knowing that everything you did, you did with the best intention and everyone who came across your path is better for it.
There is no greater legacy than that.
In the end even the most incredibly accomplishments and evolutions in technology will be forgotten about.
This article might rub you the wrong way and thats okay. I just ask for you to keep an open mind to anything that is abrasive to your current life’s beliefs. That is the only way you will ever truly be able to grow and learn as a person.
If you did enjoy this article feel free to share it a friend who needs to hear this.
Thank you for reading , have a great day and remember to live in the moment.
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