April 4 was the 45th Anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When one talks of legacy, can one have a greater impact than Dr. King? Just because most of us will never have the stature of a Dr. King doesn’t mean that our lives are not important to making the world a better place. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the legacy of a life of contribution.
“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.
It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.”
Shannon L. Alder
“The choices we make about the lives we live determine the kinds of legacies we leave.”
Tavis Smiley, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Horace Mann
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.
Woodrow Wilson
“No legacy is so rich as honesty.”
William Shakespeare
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