Leaving a Legacy
Hello everyone! I figured that my next blog would be about leaving a legacy. Now, where did this come from, you may be asking? Well, I just finished the most fantastic and beautiful book I have ever read: Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. I’ve never had a “favorite” book before, but I can actively say that this is the best book I have ever read. It was beautiful, heartwarming, and gut-wrenching all at the same time. Truly a one-of-a-kind book, and it left me thinking about the idea of legacy. I don’t want to spoil too much of the story, so I am going to try and paraphrase as much as I can.
The main character of this book, Theo, goes into a small town and performs great acts of kindness for nothing in return. He did not have to do this. He could have asked for money, fame, or his name in the newspaper, but instead he asked for nothing. He was doing acts of kindness just for the sake of doing acts of kindness.
It had me wondering: what am I doing with my life? Is everything I’m doing in hopes of being seen, being noticed, wanting someone to tell me I did a good job, or wanting someone to acknowledge me? Is it fear of feeling so insignificant, being one small human in a world full of approximately 8.3 billion people, in an infinite universe full of unimaginable wonders? So it had me wondering…
Why am I so concerned with my legacy?
So, I did some research to try and find out why I’m so concerned about my legacy and whether I should actually be worried about it at all. First, I looked into fear itself. According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, fear is “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.” But threat of what? What are we so threatened by? What do we find so dangerous that makes us fearful of being forgotten, or being left without a legacy? More on this in a bit.
I also learned from Dr. Paul Ekman’s research on universal emotions that there is something called the “Family of Fear,” a group of characteristics defined by intensity, timing, and coping. From the least intense to the most intense, there is trepidation, nervousness, anxiety, dread, desperation, panic, horror, and terror. It made me wonder where the fear of being unnoticed comes into play. Anxiety… maybe dread? Who knows! All I know is that it’s something that makes us so fearful that we hope for some kind of legacy.
So, why do we have this desire for a legacy, or this desire to be known? The main reason, as you may have guessed, is the fear of death. When we are reminded of mortality, we actively start to remember that we don’t want to die; we want to live. Psychologists note that creating a legacy is a way for us to cope with death anxiety through the idea of “symbolic immortality,” leaving behind something of value and creating a memory that outlives us, giving us the feeling that our existence mattered.
Writer and researchers exploring why we want to be remembered highlight that there are multiple ways we can leave a legacy behind:
- Bodily Legacies
- Passing down a genetic lineage through biological children
- Being an organ donor to help someone in need
- Donating our bodies to science after death
- Legacies of Value
- Passing down valuable belongings
- Passing down beliefs and values
- Passing down shared experiences and wisdom
Thinking about legacy can help us shift from a state of death anxiety into one of death reflection, being able to view mortality in terms of contentment with what you have done, instead of fear of what you haven’t.
So now we know that we work so hard to leave a legacy because we fear death, and leaving one helps people pass on with peace rather than regret. With this new knowledge, I started wondering how we can actively live a life that allows us to build that kind of meaningful footprint.
Philosophically, there are two general versions of life we can choose: a passive life (letting things happen) or an active life (making things happen). Exploring active vs. passive philosophy shows that living passively means fantasizing about outcomes without enduring the process required to make them real. We end up living with a lot of “what ifs.” Do you know why so many people choose a passive approach? You guessed it: fear. Fear of failure, or fear of putting an effort out into the world only to be met with criticism and hatred.
As discussed in articles on steering your life’s ship, you can technically leave a legacy through passive channels, though it’s much rarer:
- Generational wealth: Passing down inherited money leaves a footprint without active effort.
- Being someone else’s inspiration: Serving passively as a muse or subject for an artist or writer.
- Sacrificial timing: Simply being at the right place at the right time.
However, living an active life is a far more reliable way to leave a meaningful legacy. You are making conscious, consistent choices that align with your goals and desires. You are actively embracing change, trying new things, taking risks, and carving out your own path. Simply being a good person with good intentions isn’t always enough on its own. Unless you get incredibly lucky or have access to vast resources, actively choosing how you live every day is what pushes you toward a beautiful legacy, allowing you to look back on your life with joy and contentment rather than regret. Theo didn’t perform his acts of kindness to build a monument to himself; he did them because he was actively engaged in loving the world around him. Maybe leaving a legacy isn’t about ensuring the whole world knows our name; maybe it’s just about living intentionally enough that our quietest choices leave the world a little warmer than we found it.
What kind of legacy are you actively building today?