My legacy.

I’m watching the biography on Jon Bon Jovi and he says something about in your 20’s you want fame and fun, in your 30’s you’re all about success, in your 40’s you’re all about settling into yourself and your 50’s is about your legacy.

And that has stuck with me.

Not just because the irony of it coming from a person who arguably already has a pretty damn good legacy – but more just the word – as an adjective, as a noun.

Legacy.

And I don’t recall ever thinking about or working toward or even fathoming anything like a legacy.

If you were to ask me what is my legacy I’d answer you in 3 seconds without even blinking.

My children.

Of course, it’s my children. That is what I’ve left behind for this world.

That is my purpose – biologically speaking of course.

And sure there are my friendships and relationships and all the other “ships” that fill platitudes at your retirement party or get inscribed on your headstone.

But that is not legacy.

A quick google search defines legacy mostly having to do with money, real estate, or that which you leave behind for others.

But it also means,

“The long-lasting impact of particular events, actions, etc. that took place in the past, or of a person’s life.”

Right, there’s the legacy.

The long lasting impact.

Could be anything from building a $20 million transit center to cutting off someone in traffic and delaying them getting to the hospital in time for their child’s birth.

Could be anything from writing the great American novel to breaking someone’s heart in college.

Long lasting impact.

Who defines that?

A building. A book. A broken heart. Which is it?

Who gets to choose if it’s a positive or negative impact?

What if a positive impact for me could have been a negative impact for someone else — there are a lot of those in my journey. And vice versa.

Without a doubt the worst things that have happened to me have had the greatest impact – so in a sense those were all legacies left for me.

So what will be my legacy?

I don’t think I’ll ever really know.

I don’t think I really want to know.

Nor do I think my next decade will be spent in search of that – to activate that – to leave that.

I do know this decade will yield many accomplishments.

That building will get built.

I will become a fully published author.

My children will grow and be healthy and successful, as will my relationships.

And I’ll continue to mindlessly or mistakenly do something or say something or not do or say something that will have larger impacts than I can imagine.

And all that may or may not be considered my legacy.

I laugh a little because it occurs to me that in the end, I won’t be here to know and thus, it really won’t be my problem.

In the end, maybe the greatest legacy is just being a person, the type of person, who stops and thinks about it.

Maybe the legacy IS just the being part. Legacy IS that I lived at all.

Legacy is simply the waves of energy left behind in the wake of life.

And if that is the case, then I have a lot more energy to release and shitton of waves to make before I go.