You know, I may not make a lot of difference in THE world, but I can make a difference in SOMEONE’S world and that’s how I live my life
Depends on your definition of “significant positive legacy”.
If you’re drawn to the fame and notoriety of public figures as a template for this legacy, then I’d say these types of people already put their lives out in public for you to follow as a template. You will likely be seen as a narcissist in some circles.
On the other hand, many games and thinkers instill the rationale that you are the sum of your choices. Your karma - or action logic perhaps - will ripple around you with consequences - intended or not. These choices raise a new legacy of being an example.
A lot of people want to just live their lives in their own peace, make a living, do what they can to support their people. Such folks receive no fame, and no notoriety. They do everything necessary. There’s no thanks expected. But they make human life worth it. I’d rather be a part of this example.
Together
Everyone
Accomplishes
MoreIn many ways, we all entered the same game with the same example of team. We all wake up, work, transit. Everything has to come together in order for us to get back home safely. It has inherent value, and is a “legacy”. What I think of as “legacy” is also your heritage and your birthright. You inherited someone’s legacy to be possible and to be here.
There are forces that threaten this example. People who want to do violence to it, destroy it, pillage it, profit from it, you have to choose to protect it. They don’t want you to see your own worth. They don’t want you to see the value in others. They want you to stay small, and deny your heritage. How you protect this example, and the vulnerable, is up to you.
EDIT: I’m just using the terms you and they in a generic sense. I don’t literally mean you to single any specific person out. Similarly, I’m not literally talking about “they” like some kind of secret cabal reference. They is an ever changing reference to any kind of opposing force - be it person or system or effect.
Nope.
Don’t care about legacy either, just hope the people I care about have happy memories if they think about me until they pass away. No need for my memory to pass on to future generations or anything.
What millennial doesn’t have a death wish right about now. We were left to die by the previous generations and have gone through how many once in a lifetime events now?
What makes you think you can’t leave a significant positive legacy?
You can get involved with your neighbors. Invest in your local community. Adopt an orphan or volunteer at a women’s shelter.
There’s a million things you can do to make a significant impact. Every person you invest in is another person who can go and invest in others.
This idea that anything that’s below the national or worldwide level isn’t significant is a cancer on society.
There are people who lived hundreds of years ago who, sure, you’ll probably have never heard of if you don’t live in the same area as me, but who have had huge impact on the community. The same is true for where you live. I promise you.
Bring your eyes down, and look to make your legacy local. I promise you it’s possible. And I promise you that it’s significant.
None of us individually truly leave a lasting legacy. Maybe some get to have their name repeated a little longer than others but that’s about it.
Everything that’s happened in human history happened because of communities of people … they might have had a leader but even the leader wouldn’t have made any of it happen without large groups of people. And every single one of those people had a small part to play in making it all happen.
We all have a small part to play during our lives and together all our small parts add up to great things.
No. I think too many people obsess about what happens after they’re gone rather than living their life to the fullest. One doesn’t need to make it into history books to leave an impact on the world around them.
The following is a story I was told as a child that I think puts some if this in perspective:
One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”
The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”
“Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!”
After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said, “I made a difference for that one.”
I’m more upset about everything that’s going to happen in the far future that I won’t get to see
No. I’m here while I’m here, and I do my best to help people, when I can and am capable anyways.
There’s no stopping the clock, everyone has their time…
I think part of life is learning that there’s nothing wrong with living a simple/normal life, and that there is a beauty in it too.
ikr being a public figure and leading a high-stress life seems pretty hellish tbh.
I don’t care about leaving a legacy. I’m here to enjoy myself as much as possible in this very fucked up world.
I feel sad that I can’t see what my impact will lead to (however small).
I also feel sad that i can’t see how certain new technologies will mature.
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Do you feel sad about the fact that you’ll probably die within 100 years (or less)
A quote from Richard Dawkins:
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?
I love playing lil hypothetical games like that.
There is a hypothetical set of actions that, if I had taken them last year, would have made me a million dollars. So I just lost a million dollars.
If I took the knowledge in a current human biology textbook and rearranged it in just the right way, I’d come up with the secret to immorality. So I have a chance at immortality but will fail at it.
I could go up to any person and, in theory, have just the right conversation with them to get them to do pretty much anything I wanted. But I don’t know that conversation to have. I have lost control of the world, of which I could have been master.
I could go up to any person and, in theory, have just the right conversation with them to get them to do pretty much anything I wanted.
Omg I get triggered by these hypotheticals.
There’s a hypothetical timeline where, say, if a time traveler went back to my childhood, they could brainwash me with the alt-right pipeline.
Like… okay that’s maybe enough hypotheticals… Very uncanny to think about.
Death makes everything temporary and therefore pointless. Continuing to exist despite that is frustrating but it’s probably better than being dead.
Looking forward to it actually… Will finally get some peace and quiet…
Curious, how old are you? Like… I heard that older people seem to accept the idea of death better than younger people so I’m just curious.
When I was 18, I had a major existential crisis lol.
Wrong side of my 30s.
