The future: what’s your next?

Dear Reader,
How often do you truly think about the future. If you are young, I’m sure it’s often - thoughts of colloege or trade school, marriage, what your wedding may look like, how many children you may have, perhaps starting a business and having big ideas and big goals. But then what?

What happens after that list is done? Many of us were brought up believing that if we get a good job, get married and have some babies we will have arrived and our problems would cease to exist. We were never given the tools to live once all of those things we thought would grant us success were completed. What then? Do we just go to work 40 hours, in a constant state of rushing the morning, evenings and weekends with our families away? Spend one week a year at the beach until the government deems us old enough to stop working; living our life because that’s what everyone else is doing?

That’s the status quo. That’s what we were brought up with the belief that the status quo is success, that normal is what we’re going for because the idea of getting a spouse, a job and working 40 years is what worked for generations before us? But here we are in what truly is a whole different world. How often do you think of life after this - let alone actually think about this world you’re in right now? What about your family lineage - the ‘what’ and ‘who’ of after you’re gone. Have you ever stopped to consider your great great grandchildren and what life will be like for them? Or what they will seek out in order to understand their past? Where and who they come from. It’s a world set in digital. You may have boxes of family documents and photo albums passed down, but how will your descendants have access to you? Please don’t say the cloud or a Facebook search.

So what is your legacy? What will your future descendants say about you or learn about you? A legacy isn’t just a trust fund or something financial. It’s you, it’s the path you’ve chosen for yourself and your family. It’s the waves you make in this all too average world, a world where average, status-quo, normal is something to be praised. How will you stand out? What will people say? Let it be something enthralling, not something like “she worked, she watched tv, she gossiped and she died.” Stand out, do the things that matter, consider your future and your families’ future and create something in your life worthy of being talked about for generations.