Everyone leaves a legacy—for good or bad. It’s how we’re remembered. But a legacy can be grown. It can be a deliberate, planned, and purposeful thing.
Genealogy is a favourite hobby for many people and, in particular, retirees. Peter Calver, the founder of the Lost Cousins website, says that many subscribers to his genealogical newsletter are approaching retirement or have retired.
The bad news is that a legacy is what you leave behind when you die. The good news is that your legacy is something that lives on after you’re gone. The question for us in the retirement zone—facing retirement or in it—is, how can we carve our name on hearts? It starts with family.
It’s important to think about your retirement and your plans, but it’s also important to reflect on the most important element of your retirement—you!
Not to be morbid, but when you die you’ll leave a legacy of some kind. If you’re fortunate to have enough money you may be able to fund something that will help a whole lot of people way into the future. For most of us, our legacy will be mostly unknown, except to our family and a few we may have impacted on the way.
Interesting question. How would that focus your mind? What would become important to you? Would your priorities change? I expect so.
I’m a grandparent and the scary thing is that I have two adult grandchildren. Where did the time go? Twin boys; they’re about to turn 20. Proud? Absolutely. But I will spare you the photos and most of the stories. However, I’ve learned a lot from my adult grandchildren.
When people in retirement homes were asked about their regrets, it was less about the things they did, but ‘the things they didn’t do—never learning to salsa dance, never travelling the world, or never learning to play a musical instrument, for example’.
Ridley Scott is 79 years old. He’s currently launching a new movie, Alien: Covenant, and is thinking of doing Gladiator 2? At 79. Allow a couple of years for it to happen and he’ll be in his early 80s when it’s released. Obviously, retirement is not for him. He’s enjoying what he does too much.