Last Monday I attended a Meetup where our group talked about the concept of “legacy” and what that means to us. We told stories about why it’s important or not, and how that reflects our thoughts and actions, like how it drives what we do and how we interact with others.
One member, David, had lost his wife a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic, and he said that his legacy would be whatever his son would do with his belongings. To me, legacy doesn’t seem that important to him, and that’s okay. Everyone has different values. Another member, Rebecca, shared a short video of her deceased grandmother, 93, drinking “bad moonshine.” Her reaction in the video is full of various degrees of disgust. Her grandmother may not be famous, but to the group members, her legacy is bringing smiles and giggles to the nine of us for 30 seconds.
While the dictionary definition of “legacy” is “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past,” that doesn’t capture the diverse context of the word for different people.
Former President Barack Obama said to Prince Harry in 2017 that leadership—like legacy—is like running a relay, “taking the baton from a whole range of people who have come before.”
Susan Bosak of Legacy Project said that legacy isn’t about death, but about “life and living.” It guides us to what kind of life we want to live in and what we want to leave behind for future generations.
For many, a legacy might mean having children who not only may pass on your genes to the next generation, but to carry your story and memories with them. They may inherit your business that you had built, a home, or even something mundane like a mirror or coffee mug that one of your grandparents owned.
But to me, a legacy is something beyond material possessions: it’s about passing your story and ideas when you’re gone and how you make people feel about themselves.
Small legacies can mean a whole world to me
Leaving a legacy doesn’t necessarily mean the whole world needs to know about you. It can be something that a small circle of people value and hold close to their hearts.
Author Anna Belle Kaufman wrote a poem not long after her mother passed away. She described her reluctance to eat the last honey cake — left in the freezer — that her mom had made. It was the only thing left in the world for Kaufman that was made by her mother. Her legacy is “…Leave something of sweetness and substance in the mouth of the world.”
I thought about my own family, like what legacy would my parents leave behind. They used to own and run a Chinese restaurant in Scripps Ranch in San Diego, Calif., from March 1986 to the end of August 2000. The building is still there today, but it’s under a different business. The only evidence that Golden Crown ever existed is in court records, a Yelp page, and photographs of the place that are somewhere in my parents’ photo albums.
The legacy would be how they treated people. We had many loyal customers for 14 years. If they were alive today, they would probably still remember their experiences at Golden Crown, the conversations they had, and the savory taste of my dad’s one-of-a-kind imperial chicken.
Why is legacy important?
“A legacy may take many forms – children, grandchildren, a business, an ideal, a book, a community, a home, some piece of ourselves. Our legacy naturally intrigues us. It’s perfectly understandable that we would want to know how the world will remember us after we’re gone.”
~ Susan Bosak, Project Legacy
During the last Meetup, someone asked me why leaving a legacy is important to me. In some ways, that makes me feel “immortal.” It’s a common feeling for many people. It’s a way to make meaning of my life.
Like what Kaufman said about leaving something sweet in the world, it’s about making the world a better place than when I was born. To me, that means helping people in chronic pain find meaning, guidance, and treatment to ease their suffering and improve their independence (This is why I got into personal training and massage therapy years ago). To do so, they need access to the right information. And this is why I write and want to help others to do the same — for themselves or their audience.
In the last eight years, many people in manual therapy have influenced my thinking, and they, too, are leaving their legacy. They include:
- Diane Jacobs, a Canadian physiotherapist who teaches a unifying idea of how manual therapy works under the concept of “dermoneuromodulation” (DNM).
- Dr. Bronnie Thompson, an occupational therapist in Christchurch, New Zealand, who fills in the missing piece of the story about chronic pain. This includes the social and environmental aspects that influence our pain experience, which is not taught enough in medical schools.
- Dr. Ronald Melzack (1929-2019), a Canadian psychologist who had revolutionized how pain is understood with the gate control theory of pain — with his tag-team colleague Dr. Patrick Wall (1925-2001).
- Mija Valdez, a good friend of mine and a massage therapist in San Diego, who had influenced my decision to go into massage therapy school. If I didn’t ask her to dance that night and get to know her better, I probably would never have enrolled in the school in late 2012.
There are many more people who have left their legacy in me. Big or small, it doesn’t matter. What matters more is our interactions, their publications, and other works that shaped how I think and behave.
There’s no single definition of what a legacy is. Context is highly relevant in its meaning, and I think there’s a lot to explore as we pace through our lives.
What does legacy or leaving a legacy mean to you? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.