Non Omnis Moriar

 

I recently published a post that a bunch of people really liked, even if they weren’t necessarily mentioned in it.  Consider it more of a thank you letter to all those people who have impacted me over the years, and a public recognition of the idea that I wouldn’t exist as I am today without those people.  In fact, for a select few of them, I wouldn’t exist at all, if it weren’t for them.

I’ve realized that such a blog post is the perfect precursor for a topic I’ve been dying to write about, but I could honestly never figure out how, and I couldn’t conjure enough creativity or effort to publish a prose dedicated specifically to that topic, but here it is.  I suppose a late night at the office, my fair share of liquor and the feelings brought on by my team’s victory in week one, all coupled with the vast amount of peace and focus from the past few days are inspiration enough.

Whether you’re religious or if you choose not to believe in anything at all, we all wonder.  At least one point in each of our lives, the curiosity peaks and we question what happens after we die.  What remains?  Some of us choose to live our lives in a way that upon our passing, we leave a permanent if not lasting mark on the world and the people around us.  Sometimes it’s out of fear of the inevitability that we all are going to die someday and how people before us have figured out a way to remain immortal through memories.  But how?  And will we be remembered?

You could become a great football player and lead the nation in touchdown passes and all sorts of other records.  Eventually, though, someone is going to surpass that and take your place.  You can be an artist or a brilliant architect, but music and paintings are still and are blurred out by other rising geniuses of your like; buildings and monuments eventually turn to rubble and are generally only temporarily appreciated before they accumulate dust or are forgotten.  People remember paintings by Picasso and wonder at ancient structures.  But that’s all they are; framed pictures on a wall of a museum or ruins that have survived erosion and atrophy.  Most people know only very little (if anything) about the artist himself or the authors of the blueprints for structures we’re exploring.

A number of people have expressed their great concern for the future.  Few have been disconcerted by their legacy once they part from this earth, and but most are anxious about the next few years of our adult lives.  Pardon me, but I’m going to digress into my thoughts on the future, just for a moment.

I have always been an advocate for hope.  I used to always surrender to fear’s tempting offer to give in and live my live cautiously and carefully, and then hope for the best.  Hope is good.  Hope can motivate an oppressed people to overthrow a tyrannical government (on their own, of course, and without any interference from obstructive governments like the US, lol).  Hope can keep people hanging on in struggling and sometimes failing relationships, praying and striving for resolutions and better days.  Hope can keep people in the fight against our bodies’ failings and struggles, well beyond our capacity to handle or sometimes statistically survive.  Hope is walking through the fire.

Faith is leaping over it.  Not just an I-believe-in-God kind of faith, but faith in general.  Again, hope is fine and dandy, but it’ll only get you so far.  Have faith in yourself.  Have faith in everything you’re capable of.  The future is scary.  And sometimes our pasts are even scarier.  But we can only control the present.  And we can control how much of a factor fear and anxiety will play in what we choose to do next.

Faith is more risky than hope, I’d say.  Hope is expectantly waiting for the best.  And faith is like being a little more proactive and chasing the best.  Fear, again, will convince us that we’ll miss chances or that we’ll fail if we take a risk.  But life will always open doors.  Life will shut doors.  Life will also open up windows.  And other doors.  Life has lots of windows and doors, apparently.  But that’s the fascinating thing about life is that there is always another possibility.  Do not fear for the future because scariest thing is that you might wake up and realize you didn’t do enough or that you didn’t take all the chances you were given.  Live life loudly, and boldly.  And if you mess up, fail, or miss your mark, get up and try again because unlike when you get checkmated in chess and you lose, life is kind of like a game that never ends, and it just simply carries on.  You have to work up a mentality and attitude where you’re going to shoot for what you want and work for it.  Do what’s within your ability and if it doesn’t work out, carry on.  Remember, lots of windows and doors, because the opportunities and possibilities in life are limitless.

And that will allow me to end my digression and return to my primary point concerning legacy, because you’re limitless, too.  You can live a life where you make all the right moves and you’re winning in almost every aspect.  But at the end of the day, it matters little.  Almost everything you gain in life—all the money, the rewards, and materials—will decay and rot just as quickly as your lifeless body will at the end of that life.

Because what you do can be measured, judged, and diminished.  But who you are is something that’s almost unfathomable.  See, you are more than the choices you make, the skin you’re apparently limited to, and the money you’ll earn.  Who you are, while you might be confident—faithful, even—in, goes beyond all of that.  There is a light in each of us that no longer is just a distraction but something so compelling if we choose not to let ego question if we’re good enough and fear persuade us into just awkwardly glowing.  This light is representative of how we love, how we wonder at the world, and how we live.

How do we shine brighter? Adults, mentors, and heroes in your life will typically tell you something just like what’s to follow here: the greatest thing you can do in life is giving oneself to and loving others.  And that’s how you break beyond boundaries and become eternal and limitless.

I invite you—in fact, I dare you—to live a life where you not only seek rewards and make decisions for the survival and benefit of yourself, but that you actively live one where you give to others.  I’m not just talking about dumping ice on your head and donating to the ALS ice bucket challenge or volunteering a few hours at an animal shelter.  I’m suggesting that you love the world not just as you want to be loved, but with every bit of strength you have and to the absolute extent of your abilities. Jim Carrey said that the effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is.   And he’s right.  Of course he’s right.

Serve the world, and when you part from it, do your best to leave it better than it was when you came into it.

My writing, my silly and pathetic attempts at music, and the investments and time I spend in politics will be bested by others and even forgotten.  But how I impact the people I interact with has the potential to change and last a lot longer than I will.  The effects I have on others have the potential to outlast all I do.

This blog is almost more of a distraction to most.  However, I hope—no, I have faith—that how I love and live and maybe the words in this post can actually be compelling and rise beyond just a simple combination of thoughts, ideas, and words that are both pleasant and creative, but impacting.  I have faith the light will shine through.

You are more than just who you perceive yourself to be.  You are the fire that burns through whatever that persona is, and that part of you is most flagrant when you love and live loudly.  Have faith in yourself and live a life that betters others, and consequently yourself.  Your ego is going to ask how you can leave your mark and remain immortal, and logic will look towards fame and wealth.  Fear will suggest you aren’t enough.  Logic, ego, and fear are deceptive and blind to the fact that you already have the tools and ability to be lasting and reach that level of completeness.

So, to answer the initial question, the best way to be remembered and to leave a lasting impact on this world, is to simply love.  The best way to leave a legacy never forgotten isn’t just by any achievements you make or accomplishments you have, but how you choose to change the lives around you and how you allow your beautiful heart, mind, and soul to shine through and lift up the people around you.

The people mentioned in my previous post are all living a life that I’m sure will leave a legacy remembered forever because of the fingerprints and impacts they’ve left on me and others.  I have faith in myself to do the same.

“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.”  Non omnis moriar.