This has been the hardest year of my life. In the past 12 months, I’ve lost my two grandfathers who were some of the greatest influences in my life; I experienced the sad and tragic loss of my little brother; I’ve been impacted by the loss of three beloved clients; and I recently lost a close business-mentor of mine. Because my world will never be the same without them, I have spent a great deal of time contemplating what it means to leave a legacy. How do you want to be remembered after you’re gone?
This life is so short, y’all! By the time we graduate college, we only have about 23,000 days to make the most of it. We make choices each day about how we’re going to spend our time, our energy, which people we are going to build meaningful relationships with, which situations are worth losing sleep over, where we will live – all while trying to do our very best to be good people and avoid repeating our past mistakes. But do we spend any time thinking about how our legacy can live on without us? Do we consider that the people around us will continue to “need” us after we’re gone?
At some point in my life, I’ve had a relationship with many of you who are reading this now. I made it a point to scroll through my Facebook friends list and ask the question for each and every one of you, “What would I remember about this person after they’re gone and in what ways would I miss them?” Yes, that sounds incredibly morbid. But what I learned through this exercise is that there wasn’t a single person I wouldn’t miss. Seriously. There wasn’t a single name that jumped out at me as not having a talent, a purpose, a life that hasn’t impacted mine in some way. And so I’ll leave you with this – we need you. This world needs what you have to offer. So go about your life today knowing you have an opportunity to leave a lasting impact and your impact can be huge.
~Valerie