The Things We Leave Behind

Ah, high school. Those were the days. Unless, of course, they weren’t. Some of us look back on high school with fondness for the good times gone by, while others look back with regret for all that could have been — like Al Bundy or Uncle Rico. Whichever camp you fall into your current view of the past likely comes from a little something called perspective.

Perspective is like a 30,000 foot view of life that comes with either time, experience, or both. Going through major events and growing in maturity reframes your past experiences and allows you to see what is important and what is not. Perspective also reveals what you actually left behind to others, not what you thought you did.  For example, a senior in high school might leave behind a prime seat at the lunch table in the cafeteria and their favorite eraser to an underclassman, which might have seemed generous at the time, but later, not so much.

Inheritance vs. Legacy

We are all going to leave things behind when our time is up, whether it’s when we graduate high school or college, leave a job, or this earth. The things we leave behind generally fall into only three categories; possessions, principles, and people.

Possessions are simple — that’s all the stuff we’ve accumulated, like a favorite eraser or a big pile of money. Principles revolve around our beliefs and the example we set by how we lived our lives. And the people we leave behind aren’t just our loved ones. It’s all those that we have come in contact with, however brief. When we leave this earth, we will leave behind all three, whether we like it or not.

Leadership expert, speaker, and best selling author John Maxwell said that “inheritance is what you leave to people, legacy is what you leave in people.” Legacy is the investment you have made in the lives of others. Leaving an inheritance is nice, but leaving a legacy has far more value.  Leaving a legacy is simple, but not easy.  Here’s how:

1. Determine Your Legacy

What kind of legacy do you want to leave? How do you want to impact those who follow after you? The good news and the bad news are one and the same: you get to decide what that is. You get to choose the kind of legacy you leave, but whatever that is will take effort and intentionality. You will need to invest in yourself so that you can then, in turn, invest in someone else. What that investment looks like is up to you, you just need to decide. And if you’re Captain Passive, I’ve got news for you: not deciding is still deciding.

2. Live It

Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Once you’ve decided what kind of legacy you want to leave, you must live it first. Do as I say and not as I do won’t cut it.  In fact, it will most likely have the opposite effect. No one of character follows a hypocrite.

Living what you believe and setting the example is like the building of Rome — it isn’t accomplished in a day. It’s done day in and day out, little by little, over time. You will have to work for the legacy you want to leave. Just keep in mind that you’re going to have bad days and epic failures that end in apologies and lessons learned, but progress is the goal, not perfection.

3. Pass It On

Don’t miss this — legacy is something we pass on while we are still alive. It is not mere memory, good thoughts, or platitudes tossed around by those who knew us after we’re gone. There is no scenario where we kick the bucket and then all kinds of amazing knowledge and behaviors miraculously download into the hearts and minds of the people we cared about. No. It is the creative, intentional investment of our time and our resources into other people who become people of character and then themselves pass it on to others just as we did. That kind of legacy will impact more people, create more value, and long outlive any other thing we leave behind.

Because Time Is Finite

I remember a story that I heard in Sunday School when I was a kid. The story was about three generations of men: a grandfather, a father, and a son. The three of them were each represented in an object lesson by a candle, and each candle was a different length — a short one, a medium one, and a tall one. The candles sat on a table at the front of the classroom while the teacher asked us whose candle was whose. Of course, we guessed the tallest one was the grandfather, the medium one was the father, and the shortest one, the son.

The medium size candle did represent the father, but we got the other two backwards. The tallest candle was actually the son, and the shortest candle represented the grandfather. Why? The candles, it turned out, represented their potential life spans and how much time their candles had left to burn after they had given their lives to Christ. You see, the grandfather’s candle had already been burning a long while, and he had only a short time left. Much like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning, he had a lot of catching up to do and not a lot of time to do it.

No one knows how much longer their candle will burn, so make the most of your time and light a thousand more. We may not get to decide how we’re going to die, or when, but we can decide how we are going to live.

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– What’s your legacy going to be?
– Are you being intentional about living what you believe?
– Have you invested in someone else?
– Why not start today?
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