Why It Is Important To Leave A Legacy

The impact of your life will be determined by your dash.

When you die they'll indicate on your tomb the year of your birth and the year of your death separated by a dash (1960 — 2020). The dash is your life. What you did. How you lived. Whose life you touched. The legacy you left behind. The more purposefully engaged you are in helping others, the deeper and finer and more memorable is your dash.
So many of us are busily marking tasks off our "To Do" list but how many of us are thoughtfully creating our "To Be" list? The only way to create and execute on a meaningful "To Be" list is to also have a "Stop Doing" list. Aristotle said it best: "Excellence is not an art. It is a habit." We can't be excellent half of the time and be in a comfort zone the other half. We're either excellent or we're not.
Good habits are hard to develop but they're easy to live with. Bad habits are easy to develop but hard to live with. Excellence is a habit. Stewardship is a habit. Philanthropy is a habit. These habits touch people. They plant seeds of greatness in the lives of others. They create your legacy in a lasting and authentic way.
None of us can honestly start out inventing our legacy. Rather, we are who we are and we do what we do. The world notices and assigns to us the definition of our legacy. The best legacies are innocent by-products of a life lived well and a heart overflowing with tender love. Seek not fans, fame, and fortune, but instead faith, family, and friends.
I want it to matter that I lived at all. Not for personal gain but for the need of knowing that when God breathed in my nostrils and gave me life, He intended for me to use it well. To help a person. To light a candle. To build fires so others can warm themselves. To dig wells so others can quench their thirst. To construct strong bridges so others can travel across them.
What a universe this would be if enlightened self-interest were to inspire us all to do good and to be good so we can be more, have more, give more! Our challenge is not to aim crusades at people to ignite their sense of legacy, but to form partnerships with them. Partnerships to frame our world with a tapestry of gentle caring, and unselfish serving…and to guarantee a bountiful dash.

Dr. Nido Qubein is president of High Point University (www.highpoint.edu) and is an internationally know speaker and author (www.nidoqubein.com).