Have you ever thought about what would happen if you died tonight in your sleep? I have. Sore subject, I know, but I'm not just talking about family, friends & emotions; although those are very important factors. I'm looking more at the productive side - what have you done to change the world? What would those around you do in your absence - Could you help them in death?
I never realized how much my friend, Kyle, did for me until he passed away August 2006 due to injuries sustained in a car accident. [No, he wasn't drunk or high - he was rushing home from soccer practice so he wouldn't be late for his senior pictures..] He was one of my first friends at my new high school freshman year & we grew closer throughout the years. He helped me in so many ways when my parents separated & then divorced, when I was going through boy or school troubles, when he introduced/brought together his bestfriend & I [we're still together since our junior year of high school], & he was there for me the day I got in a bad car accident. His death, even, brought me closer to religion & taught me how precious life was. I still cry today because I never got to thank him for everything ... I also feel guilty for his death - not in the sense that I caused it, but he died on the same road, in almost the same spot, that I almost died on in my accident. I guess I'll always wonder why I got to live but he didn't, & I'll never think that it's fair. Kyle was going to the pro's in soccer, everyone knew it. He & his girlfriend were very serious at the time. He & his sister were all his mom had [Kyle's dad died in a car accident before Kyle was born]. I don't understand how someone who had so much to live for could be taken so young. We [his family, the soccer program & all of the people who loved him] created a scholarship in his honor - it doesn't bring him back, but it adds to his legacy so that no one will forget such an amazing person.
He left so much behind & helped so many people ... Do you ever wonder if you would do the same? I do .. a lot. I want to know if my actions have actually made a difference in someone's life or if there are things I can do to help. I've given advice about relationships, but who hasn't. I was the mom in my family through high school but that comes a long with being the oldest child. I have a big impact on my boyfriend, but that's because we've been together so long. I can argue about certain areas in the Bible, but I should know more. I have helped with homework & those kind of related problems, but I want to do more.
I don't want to be a "waste of space" anymore ... I'm very thankful for the life I've been given & I want to do what I can while I'm here.
Maybe think about this the next time you have an opportunity present itself. Not for the self-fulfillment of saying "yeah, I'm a great person look what I've done" but so that you can know that you weren't a waste of a human being. So that you leave behind a legacy that might be able to help someone or give hope. I want to be a productive human.
At least you remember him. I wonder how many people I've forgotten about already. And they're not even dead yet. But they might as well be since we do not communicate anymore. Anyway, if I die right now...no one will remember me. I don't think I have a legacy for anything YET. I don't want the whole world to remember me or anything. One person would be enough. But maybe I've already made a change in someone else's life without knowing it...
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I know what you mean ... I wouldn't be hurt if the world didn't remember me, I just hope someone would.
How cool would that be if someone came up to you & said "you know, you've really changed my life." I think I would cry. hug them & buy them food... food makes everything better in my world, ha.
It all amazes me - the fact that you can affect someone by just being there, effortless.
I believe I made an impact in someone else's life already...even though I lack confidence when I say it. There is no proof. No one ever come up to me and say such thing. I wish they did so at least I know I did change their lives. Perhaps many of us have this ego thing where you don't want to admit how someone is changing yourself...until they disappear or something...then you begin to think about it. Before you know it, it's too late to even thank them.
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Unless you make an impact on the world and society as a whole, then your legacy is of very little consequence after a while. There are some people out there who like to do genealogical trees and learn where they come from and who's in their family, but most people don't know past their own grandparents. So unless you change the government, science, or the face of business or entertainment in some extraordinary way, what legacy are you leaving that won't be gone in 50 years or so? It's almost too trivial to worry yourself over. Everyone has had an impact on someone out there in some way, so who cares how your legacy is going to be remembered and which person you had more of an impact on. Focus more on making the impact until you're gone and stop stressing over it.
No day but today
-RENT
You make a very good point! I never thought of that aspect ... thanks!
Stressing over it? I guess so.
If I die right now, all that'll be left is my notebook that I write down everyday that describes three good things that happened that day, and three bad. Also, whatever remains of what I've written on the internet, whether MySpace or Facebook or Youtube or here, will be scattered throughout these "series of tubes."
I'm only seventeen, so I hope I achieve something more than this. My biggest fear is that I will one day find the meaning to all existence, to only realize that I'm fifty years old, single, and working in a pizza shop, with no means of adding any significance to my epiphanies.
And I think that's what drives everybody to be something more, because the alternative would just be a boring and mundane pattern. The most noble aspect of human nature is our ability to escape; manufacture some form of immortality and impact.
The way you are remembered is probably not at all for most people, and if you do become famous the media will find a way to make you a villain if they find a tiny weakness. History is more bullshit than reality.
Today, right now is the only reality. Do a tiny thing right every time you get the chance. Legacies are mostly fiction.
BTW, Great Blog.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."
Oscar Wilde
I try to help people all I can, even if its the littlest things, ut I sometimes wonder if I really do make any impact. I have come to know that even the smallest thing you do can make a big impact, even if you don't realize it. It's like a ripple in the water, one drop lands in the water and it ripples out. Have you ever seen the movie "Pay it Forward"? In the movie, the boy does several "good" deeds, the only thing he asks is that th recipients pay it forward (to so many other people), continuing the chain. I think this unexpectidly occurs in real life. Someone does somthing nice to a stranger, the stranger, in a good mood because of it, ends up maybe doing something nice for someone else, and it spreads. Anyways, where I'm getting at is that even the smallest deeds don't always go unnoticed, and you end up making a bigger difference than you thought.
"Don't let anyone ever make you feel like you don't deserve what you want." - 10 things I hate about you
Yes! I love that movie!
I know what you're saying. I know that someone holding the door for me in the morning brightens my day - all the little things really do matter!