I was asked once what I wanted my legacy to be. I was feeling lost and trying to understand the path that I wanted my life to go and for the first time I could remember, I simply didn’t know what I wanted. I felt like a rat caught in a trap with no direction and for someone who is very outcome-oriented, it was horrific. The question about my legacy was to try and focus on the end in mind of where I wanted to end up and work backwards from there.
I was losing sleep through worry about my lack of direction: I didn’t know whether to work for myself, work for a company or a hybrid of the two. It was quite disconcerting and after taking some time to unpack what I thought I “should” do and what I thought others expected of me, I worked through my values and purpose and decided that working for a company fit my values better and to also follow my passion in working for myself on the side.
Today was my birthday and I decided I wanted to spend time exploring Toowong Cemetery. Toowong Cemetery, Brisbane’s largest cemetery, was chosen about 150 years ago as it was far enough away from the city that it wouldn’t cause a health hazard for residents. One of the complaints about Toowong Cemetery when it was established was that was too far for mourners to attend funerals. Today that seemed inconceivable as I looked at the houses and businesses that were now built up around it and heard in continuous traffic even during this time of self-isolation.
The cemetery grounds were beautiful and peaceful with freshly cut grass and well-established trees. Not too many (living) people were about. The graves were well maintained and looked like they had stood lasted well throughout the years with headstones that were upright and quite easy to read.
I don’t know it was a blessing or a curse that on my birthday I read one family headstone that listed the ages of the children who had died in the 1800s. They were 6 years old, 3 months, 4 years, 9 years. I tried to imagine – and failed -- what their parents had gone through in burying their children throughout the years. I wondered if the parents kept having children because, despite the risk of heartbreak, they saw this as a way of continuing their legacy?
Another grave nearby was simply captioned, “Mother”. I felt conflicted as that one word generated such love and pain within me but I thought that surely this woman deserved for her name to be put on her headstone and not just reduced to the fact that she had given birth.
I continued to walk through Toowong Cemetery and started to see that some of the graves were not as well-maintained as I had originally thought. Trees had grown and displaced some graves, statues of angels had lost their heads, other headstones had simply fallen over and the names of the decreased had faded away.
What was the legacy of these people?
I now know that my purpose is to makes things better. This week I have seen a number of my team step up their performance to the next level and have exceeded my expectations in providing a service to our customers. I have been so proud of them and have loved seeing their reactions when I have told them so.
Maybe that’s my legacy. Not in having my name or achievements remembered but that I have helped my team strive to also make things better.
And maybe that is enough.
Comments