The following question and answer comes from my book Success for Life: Answers to the 77 Questions College Students Ask. I received over 1000 questions from students looking for answers, wondering about the best path in life. If you like what you read here, you can pick up your copy AT AN ALL-NEW LOW PRICE to read all of this helpful advice.
How can I create a legacy on earth after I’m gone? Will I be just another teacher or will I be a valuable teacher that touches lives and makes a difference?
What a deep question! Honestly, this is the one that most haunts my own thoughts and my wife probably should just answer for me. I’m not sure I know a good enough answer, but I do have some thoughts. Actually, you can probably understand my words by reading the previous questions and responses. Creating a legacy starts inside you.
Continue the work you have started now on building a better you. Whether you need to better your skills at communication or time management or getting into shape or how you deal with your relationships, making a stronger you aids you in the legacy you build.
Yet, understand this truth—you will leave a legacy and make a difference no matter what you do. The real question, what I think you probably are asking, is “what KIND of difference will you make?” Every interaction with others leaves a mark, makes a ripple in their life. All teachers touch the students they are with, for good or ill. This reality is even more why you must focus on becoming a person of worth.
If you are a negative, bitter, ugly or mean person, the impact you leave on others is poisonous. So, if you don’t want to leave a legacy that others hate to recall, then the thing to change or improve is you.
How, then, with a good internal person of worth, do you leave a legacy? Put others first. Invest in the lives of others, even your rivals. Learn to cheer from the bench; you will not always be a “starter,” but you can applaud the excellence and success of others. Serve others by helping them with their needs. Be a nice person, pleasant and kind. I know the old adage that “nice guys finish last” but that simply is not true. First it misses the reality of where the finish line might be (hint—it’s with God), but more so it misses what true success is (refer back to question #3).
As you pour yourself into others, you can’t help but leave a legacy. Students will remember you forever, as I do many of my own teachers, childhood through college. You may never be world famous, but your impact will be deep!