Life’s Mission

Life’s Mission

 

Participation in this wonderful journey (life) is what it’s all about.  How do you know when your mission on earth is done and over?  You will never know, because as far as I am concerned, your mission is not over even when you die.  Until the day of your last breath and departure, you will contribute and then your legacy continues beyond.

• So what does a legacy include? As you would imagine, financial assets are certainly one part of a person’s legacy. In fact over the next few decades over $25 trillion, yes I said trillion, will pass from one generation to another making this period the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in the history of the world.
• The Allianz study actually revealed four pillars of legacy among its 2,627 people that they surveyed: values and life lessons, personal possessions of emotional value, wishes and directions to be fulfilled, and financial assets. Believe it or not, financial assets are not the most important of the four pillars. Non-financial items such as ethics, morality, faith, and religion, are ten times more important than financial matters to the elder parents and adult children.
• This study confirms that the value of your wisdom and personal experience, despite what you may perceive, is more valuable to your descendants than what you would ever have imagined. As a father, son, and grandson, I completely agree with this study and value anything non-financial from my ancestors and descendants as the most precious gifts ever given. Published: 02/01/2012  by Lee Thorsen

 

I would recommend to anyone reading this post to start a journal if you don’t already have one.  If you don’t presently have a journal, much of what you will leave as part of your legacy is still in your mind, and we all retain that information at different levels of quality, in other words depending on our family health history, our memories could begin to fade with age.  I am presently writing a book on my family history, and what little I have shared usually brings surprising reactions from my children, like I don’t know as much about you as I thought I did.

If we set our minds to it, every year, or minimally every decade could be a chapter in the book of our lives.  We usually underestimate the life we’ve lived, and can’t imagine anyone wanting to know what our life was like.  Certain periods of time might have been painfully slow and unchanging such as the pioneer days.  The period of our life on the other hand has been fast paced, especially when you see it in retrospect.

If you think for a moment about what some of us have gone through: from no television to smart television; from no widespread phone service to cellular telephones and Smart Phones; from being contained to Earth to landing on the Moon, and exploring Mars.  The amazing thing is that we lived the above mentioned events as they developed.  We can share first-hand information with our children and grandchildren that they may or may not take the time to research.

We still have time (and the mental capability) to explain to our children how their parents first met, courted and fell in love.  What our early family life was like, whether we cruised or struggled for the first few year.  How their arrival into the family completed our very existence.  Sometimes when we want to give our family a special gift but can’t afford it (financially), well, here is the answer right in front of you.  Make the gift that you can’t put a price on, and no one else can possibly give them.  Give them the gift of your legacy.  The best is yet to come….