Our Personal Legacies

Yesteryday's post was on choice, how we have the power within us to make choices that determine the direction of our lives.

We also have the power to choose to be bold, or live quietly.

What we choose to do becomes part of our personal legacy. If we choose to be bold, that, too, becomes part of our personal legacy.

In my first post, I mentioned the work I once did at a retirement center, which mostly consisted of sitting with elderly residents and offering companionship. And listening. I listened to many wonderful stories of lives fully lived. And I never once heard anyone say, "I wish I had been LESS bold. I wish I had not taken that chance and told that person how I felt. I wish I had not traveled to that place. I wish I had not learned that new skill or language or taken that new oppourtunity."

Instead, what I would hear was, "I wish I had been MORE bold. I wish I HAD taken a chance and told someone how I felt. I wish I HAD traveled to that place, or learned that new skill or language or taken that new opportunity." For what we don't do also becomes part of our personal legacy. And never knowing what an outcome might have been can haunt us in a far greater way than taking a risk and having events not turn out the way we'd hoped for ever would.

We create our personal legacies with each step we take, and each step we don't take. Nothing is left up to 'fate', and things don't just happen for or to us. The power of choice gives us the freedom to determine what much of our experiences will be. Just as I am the author of this post, we are all the authors of our own lives. We just have to be bold enough to pick up a pen and begin writing.

Painting: Things We Let Go, by Amy L. Alley