Think Back and Evaluate Your Life.
Creating a legacy can help you figure it out.
At some point in life, it's a good idea to take stock of the good and bad things you've done, and it doesn't have to be at your final hour. The sooner you do this, the better. Doing it now gives you time to make amends for things you regret and time to glory in the things you are proud of.
There is a connection between your legacy and your eulogy. I was writing a eulogy for my deceased brother and wondered how different it would be if he wrote it himself. In a sense, you are creating your legacy as you live each day, and your eulogy is a compilation of your life's achievements and disappointments written by another. Your life could be examined both ways, first by you as you self-reflect and by another, as in a eulogy written after you have died.
Shakespeare's Hamlet expresses the contrast between human physical beauty, intellectual faculty, and our transitory nature:
“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”
So is that it? Are we a collection of dust to which we will return? Probably.
The concept of self-reflection is ancient. "Know thyself," for example, was the first of three Delphic maxims engraved more than 3,000 years ago in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Throughout the centuries, many writers, such as William James in Reflective Awareness, The Principles of Psychology (Vol. 1). New York: Dover), all the way back to Protagonas and Socrates.
Rene Descartes famously and succinctly proposed: Cogito ergo sum (English: "I think, therefore I am") tells us that reasoning is a characteristic of humans and the potential could include individual self-reflection.
According to Sandra Christian in SELF-REFLECTION: The Key to An Amazing Life, self-reflection helps people in multiple ways:
First, it fortifies an individual's emotional stability.
Self-awareness helps people understand their feelings, where they may have shortcomings, and acknowledge changing circumstances.
Second, self-reflection enhances a person's self-esteem.
What a joy to recognize one's outstanding qualities and, further, to identify the ones that require work.
Third, the self-reflection process requires the individual's honesty to be compelling.
Fourth, self-reflection may change a person's actions in the future.
Take the time to step back and consider your behaviors. What are the consequences of those behaviors? How can we expect those behaviors to give us insight into ourselves?
Some people may write an Ethical Will, an ancient document from the Jewish tradition. In Genesis 49:1–33, Jacob, on his death bed, gathered his sons to offer them his blessing and to request that they bury him not in Egypt but in Canaan in a cave with his ancestors. In other biblical examples of Ethical Wills, Moses urged men to teach their children, Deuteronomy 32:46–47.
Writing an Ethical Will in modern times aims to link people to their families and cultural history, clarify their moral and spiritual values, and communicate a legacy to future generations. It addresses a person's needs to be known, be remembered, have one's life make a difference, to bless, and be blessed.
One of the reasons I started writing my memoir reflects my ancient feeling of lacking any significance as a person and my desire to understand myself and be remembered. My blogs are my Ethical Will. As my ninety-first birthday approaches, these writings (the first fifty of them published in my book, My Pandemic Paradox, A Surprising Development from this Calamity were all I thought I could manage. Since then, however, I have continued writing, and by posting this one, I will have written 160 blogs.