My Legacy

I attended a conference today--an organization development (OD) conference.  These are odd gatherings.  Most of us work in the world of business, whether it is in enterprise or like I do in government in the world of the people's business.  Yet, OD crosses barriers unlike most other professions.  On one level we work on making organizations better very much in the here, now, and tangible world while on the other level we do the sacred work of soul and spirit in our workplaces.  Most of us don't talk about it a lot except with each other, but that is what we do.

Unlike most others, I did write and speak of the spiritual dimensions of work a lot...in the 1990s.  Three books and lots of speeches. That was a time when I had a very clear sense of my purpose and the legacy I was here to leave.  That was then; now is now.  I seemed to have lost touch with  my life's intention.  I still do many of the same tasks and activities, but they feel like going through the motions in the physical world instead of filling me with passion, zeal, and purpose in my very soul as they once did. 

The life got tough about a dozen years ago, and somehow in the struggle to just get by, I lost all of that.  One of my coaching clients once talked about it as losing her spark.  That's a good metaphor, because it does seem like I've lost my fire most of the time.

This morning I glimpsed again.  Although I felt like I should be a in a session about organizational resistance, but instead I went to one on legacy.  It ended up it wasn't about "legacy" at all, but that's OK.  I got into the right head space anyway.

The focus of the conference was on innovation.  I researched creativity/innovation and leadership in graduate school, and I think that is how I discovered my soul.  Maybe it is more appropriate to say that I became conscious of my soul--awake to it. Creativity, it seems, is a deeply spiritual subject--not one that I could easily study without dipping into my own spirituality.  Having those conversations today took me there again.

I had been so sure that I was on my path back then, and today I felt it so clearly again.  For a while this evening, I wondered how I could have so lost touch with who I am, but as the hours passed, I knew.  I have always been on my path.  I just didn't know where the journey would take me and I did lose touch with the feeling of truly being alive--being me.  But, in my heart I know that I've always been on my journey, I just didn't know I was.  I hadn't focused my attention on that intention in a way that is spiritually ignorant--ignoring it, if you will. 

We are all on our journeys...all the time: sometimes we just forget to notice and to honor the journey for what it is.

I wish I could say that I have a crystal clear view of my legacy.  I don't.  What I know now that I didn't know this morning is it is time for me to be conscious of being in my legacy...again.  My soul yearns for it.  Those who have been reading this blog know that for the last several months I've written about feeling "pregnant"--feeling something in me was about to be born or has been tightly in bud and wants to bloom.  This evening I am sure it is more like waking up to what has been there all along.  That is my legacy--not words to describe it--but really feeling it, stepping into it, being it.  That is all there is.

What Do You Want To Be Remembered For?

I was watching an old movie with friends this evening, and sandwiched in between some other dialogue, the question was posed, "What do you want to be remembered for?" Although the action of the movie hardly paused for the unanswered question, it penetrated me at my core.  What do I want to be remembered for?

In an almost instantaneously quick life review, I knew that how I've lived in recent years was not the answer to that question.  It's not that I've been doing anything so bad in recent years. I've survived in a world which focuses on surviving.  Almost as quickly, I felt that longing for the days when I made my decisions, based on thriving. I don't want to be remembered for racing through life like everyone else.  I want to be remembered as someone who was special.

I am mostly proud of my life until recent years.  I delight that I wrote several books that have changed people's lives around the world and especially their work lives. I am proud of the company I ran and the executive coaching work I did. I find satisfying the contribution I made to companies in which I consulted.  I am humbled by the contribution that I have made to humane globalization. I smile thinking of the young minds that I touched in both the classroom and one-on-one coaching as a university teacher.

But, I am reminded of the phrase, "What have you done for me lately?"  What have I done for my legacy in the last eight years? I've been so focused on paying the bills and refunding my depleted retirement that I've forgotten the two things that are most important.  What have I done to nurture a better world around me? What have I done to nurture my own soul?

I believe that those contributions are made in the moment-by-moment decisions that we make about how to live our lives, but what I've been leaving out of that calculus have been the questions, "What do I want to be remembered for?" It's not just about what is the right thing to do in this moment to survive, but if the act I am making in this moment were the headline on my tombstone, is it what I would want to be remembered for?

I want to be remembered for a generous heart--not just monetarily generous, but was I remembered for being generous with my time and attention? Were others able to feel my caring, not just hear caring words? Was the love I felt for others love that radiated from my heart and not just a thought from my head?

After my last post about giving, I compiled a daily gratitude list.  What stood out to me on both the "gifts received" list and the "gifts given" list was that I hadn't felt the gifts in the moment. I hadn't been a gracious receiver or an intentional giver. I was only intellectualizing them several hours later.

As I think about what I want to be remembered for, perhaps that is it: I want to be remembered for feeling my interactions with others. How can I have a generous heart if I don't feel what I am giving? How can I feel love, if I am not actually feeling? I want to be remembered for being a feeling person who was really present to the people and relationships around me. In my busy life, that will be a stretch, and if my legacy is to be the one I choose, if will be absolutely essential.