This is a topic that I want to take time with and draw out. I feel it’s something that incredibly powerful and important for men to understand. We’ve probably all heard about this before, about leaving a legacy, unfortunately it’s often talked about in “self-improvement” type terms and a lot of the power of the word is lost. But that seems to be the rule in the modern world, the watering down and stripping of power of the language.
But that’s a talk for another time, we’re talking about legacy today. I suppose the first thing to is to determine what a legacy is. Unfortunately this is one where the dictionary doesn’t really help us that much. The dictionary definition of legacy is “1: a gift by will especially of money or other personal property” whereas were looking more for the second definition “2: something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past”. But even then that doesn’t cover it entirely.
I think its safe to say that when we’re looking to leave a legacy we’re looking to do more than just leave money or material goods behind and we’re certainly not looking to leave behind negative things. Hell alcoholism could be a legacy of sorts according to the second definition. We’re looking to leave a lot of things with a legacy, but there is one thing that shines above all others, or at least in my estimation it does.
And that thing is the imprinting of a soul.
The Imprinting Of A Soul By The Past
Now what on earth do I mean by the imprinting of a soul? I like to define things because honestly 50% of arguments are about definitions of things and not the actual thing. As well as when someone is forced to define something they have to stay much more consistent with their arguments, or at least attempt to. Anyways what do I mean by the imprinting of a soul? By imprinting of a soul I mean leaving an impression and forging that soul to be more like you, at least the good parts.
That’s the best definition of a legacy I can think of. When we look to the past and those that came before and the impressions that they made on us. All men stand on the shoulders of those that came before and no man is anything but his lone self. This is a blow to the ego but more importantly its reality. We’re all shaped and formed by everything around us in addition to our own will, which though it has the potential to be powerful will never be 100% in control, ever.
A coach forcing us to push on when we want to give up, a teacher teaching us the value of knowledge, a parent being firm but steady with us and teaching us the value of discipline, a friend sticking by your side in a fight you know you’re going to lose showing you what love and loyalty truly are. A poet showing you the beauty of something as simple as a tree growing in the yard. All of these things leave impression, sometimes strong life lasting impressions. Imprinting a good part of their soul onto our own. Leaving a legacy.
The Many Paths To Legacy
While there are certain skills that I think all men should at least have a familiarity with, at the same time I think its important to understand that we’re all different and because of that are going to have different things we specialize in. Speaking in another way I’m saying our legacy isn’t all going to be the same. Don’t think that you need a statue dedicated to you in town square to have a legacy. The history books may never remember your name but that doesn’t mean your legacy won’t live on beyond you.
For example I recently had a mentor of mine die. He was my football coach and he’d drive me to school everyday because I lived out of district and he wanted me to play football for them and knew my family. He was old and near retirement when I got to school but stuck around until I graduated. He was an old salty sort. He had “found Jesus” later in life but that didn’t stop him from sharing his hard won wisdom from a life often roughly lived.
He chose what to say to me and what not to, having respect for my parents, but I learned a hell of a lot from him and far beyond just how to be a better linebacker. He had been divorced once, raised six kids, and lived all over the United States of America. His kids were relatively happy and successful, living decent lives, including the ones he took in off the street. Even though he’s passed and won’t be remembered by the community I’ll always carry a piece of him in my heart, in my very soul.
Always.
A Broad View Of The Path To Legacy
I have no choice but the be effected by his influence and have it be a part of me and I’m thankful for it. Building off what I was saying before there are many paths to legacy. Here I want to give a very brief outline, we’ll go over this part of leaving a legacy more in depth in the next section but we’ll use this as a primer of sorts. And as always please don’t think these “categories” are the end all, be all of leaving a legacy. They’re not, they’re just what I came up with, given infinite time I’m sure I’d come up with more. These are just broad strokes to get you started, that’s about all anyone else can provide anyways.
So legacy wise we have a personal legacy like the coach above, this is where the legacy is often deep but not necessarily wide and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. Legacy of blood, this is having many children and having your blood go on through history. Legacy of influence, this is where you use your money, resources, and social capital to effect change and leave impressions, think public speakers, civic leaders and the like. Finally legacy of art, this is where you leave art that affects those that come over, don’t underestimate the power of this one.
There are many ways to leave a legacy and we’ll be discussing a good thrust of them all shortly. So stay tuned.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
