You may have been too busy to entertain this question if it crossed your mind or to address your mind to it. Obviously you may not have imagined that while you are seeking purpose and doing everything to be that purpose, that you are actually writing yourself a legacy prior to your exit from this space.
This thinking should let you evaluate your every step, be in every moment for all the right reasons and seek to etch your deeds into the minds of those who have encountered or experienced you. Have you ever thought on your ways? How often do you think on your ways? This thought should guide you towards building an enduring legacy.
I think on my ways every day and sometimes I feel less worthy because of the things that I failed to do, why I failed to do them, and the things that I have done. There is a difference among desires, visualizations and actual manifestations through daily actions.
Where are you right this moment? Are you where you want to be? Even if your answer is no, how you act and do whatever you do in the condition that you are in now, is what holds the ace for you. If you were to breathe your last this moment, would you be glad to be associated with your present involvement? Truth is that you are where you are meant to be right now. This is the reality. What you do where you is the fortune.
If you were to take your last breath today, knowing full well that tomorrow is not promised you and yesterday is gone forever, what is that one activity that you want to engage in and invest your time in today? You must realize that not many persons have the opportunity to set their house in order.
However, you do know that today is not your last and neither will tomorrow be for the obvious reasons that some things have been said of you, some things have been written of you that are yet to come to pass. Yet, do also recall that what is written says that prophecies shall fail.
The only thing that will be and that will transit beyond time in all goodwill of just recompense is love. Love can never fail because it is the expression of the essence of the Infinite Intelligence whether yesterday, today or forever. Love will pay you if you sowed love.
What activities do you engage in daily? Are they driven of Love? For whom do you engage: of thine own will or of divine will? Unless His will is done daily in all that you do each day, you are in contest with Love. Then you want to ask what legacy you are writing. What do want to be remembered for?
Legacies are written in time. Legacies are not written in death though in death, like in wills, they become fully activated. Would men cringe at their own words after they extolled you with glowing tributes at your exit, though they know that they only used sophistry? Would their conscience prick them at the thought that they merely spoke words that are next to the truth?
Ironically, every thieving politician, every public official with questionable credentials, and unscrupulous men and women across every industry live well only in their demise. The lips of men and women in their mould testify of them so. Unfortunately, that wasn't the legacy written by the life they led. Lies do no good. Their legacy is activated in the minds of men they rolled with; men and women who encountered them, perhaps regularly or otherwise.
Think on the causes you pursue. The all-seeing eye sees all things, but the ignorant do not know that, that which lies hidden and submerged in them tell their story with such accuracy that it leaves no details out. Man's spirit keeps a perfect record of all of man's activities. Man's spirit is the Maker's candle. How many of us know this? But now that you know, would you re-write the script? Are you ready to pay the price?
That sounds like taking a 360 degree turn around that would make you face where you are coming from. Yes, for want of a more generic and known term-repentance, I have used 360 degree. So, why do men vilify the word so much even if their conscience tells them that, that is the way of escape. It is the only way to buy man peace; yet, man abhors it.
It's funny how men live everyday like they will live forever. It's funny how men live like their lives belong to them. Men live like they own everything when they do know that nothing belongs to them. Something greater than man must be responsible to bring man to the point of realization. The point where legacy can be re-written, and a new script penned down because the old one is everything but sound doctrine and life.
If the very activity that you are involved in right now behind closed doors, were to be made public or published, would you approve of it? Would you like to be associated with it? Would it draw a smile from you or make you put your palms over your face? What emoji would best describe it? Whichever action it elicits tells what legacy you are writing.
You write various legacies concerning the different areas of your engagement. In your business, in your family, in your friendship, at work, and at home among neighbours. What will you be remembered for as you deal daily? Don't you ever forget this all-important question. It's the only purpose for which you are here.
Your legacy is in your purpose. Your purpose manifests in every area of your life. And all that you do shall speak for or against you; shall stand for or against you. There is no escape. Let no one delude you. As long as you do not delude yourself, no one can delude you. To thyself, be true and this will affect how true you will be to others. The rule is to love others as yourself, not more or less. It follows therefore that you can only love as much as you love yourself.
The simple fact that you remember your doings lets you know that they will be remembered. They are as present with you as you read this. Your doings are neither obliterated nor annihilated. Neither death nor time obliterates them. Yet, David's was covered. Would yours be covered the same way? Then, remember your legacy if you find the predestined favour. Life has never been the way you imagined. Look through the divine mirror, if you find the grace of eye salve.
You write your legacy as you do your secular work and business, whether in business, entrepreneurship, paid or self-employment, or in whatever capacity. Do you apply the golden rule? Or does the golden rule not rule your actions? You do not have to have the golden rule inscribed on your wrist or on your forehead, but if your conscience is not seared with a hot iron and you are not warped in unbelief and laden in the abject filth of rot, you would live with a circumspect intensity all day long. It's a program running in your spiritual DNA. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." Does that injunction rule your every action? Is His will your will? Have you adopted His words as your words? That's only if you have been adopted by Him.
Imagine the boss who employed men, paid them peanuts, did neither pension nor group life, and gave no option of health insurance to employees, yet each month deducted taxes that are never remitted. Think on that a moment more. What shall be the legacy of such a boss?
As parents, don't leave your legacies for your children in properties. That's good, but it's great if you build their minds through exemplary living, more than by empty instructions. It's funny how we send children to school, provide everything for them, buy them jobs upon graduation, buy them houses, buy them spouses, and even maintain their children. If that is the legacy you are building, then I doubt if you have a heritage. I am wondering when they shall stand on their own, when you only left many things for them, rather than leaving enduring values in them.
Guy Kawasaki said, "My personal elevator pitch, or what I will call my mantra is to empower people. So, with two words, I like to describe why I think I exist. I want to empower people with my writing. I want to empower people with my speaking; empower people with my evangelism. Sometimes, even an investment. But at the end of my life. I want to be known as a person who empowered others."
What about you? What do you truly want to be remembered for? Is it any different from the script you are writing now through your daily actions? Think on this because you don't have forever. Every day, while you think that you are adding to your days, you are actually subtracting from it. This thinking is a curious one. You may want to ponder it a little.
