“They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing–these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice…. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to.”
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Recently I watched the Ken Burns documentary The Viet Nam War. The series explored the war from all perspectives and gave a detailed history of what led to the conflict and the U.S. involvement. There were interviews from U.S., South Vietnamese, and Viet Cong veterans. The series ended with a few lines from O’Brien’s book. Those soldiers and Marines in Viet Nam carried lots of things with them.
As we near the end of the year, maybe it’s time to think about what we will leave behind.
There are two groups of things we need to leave behind.
- The Negative Things. If we’re honest, we respond far more to negativity than to positive things. Sadly, much of that comes from us. This year, make a commitment to be kinder to yourself. Life is full of negativity. The last thing we should do is add more to it!
- The Important Things. This year my Word of the Year is Legacy. I turn 60 next year and it’s a good time to reflect on where I’ve been and where I’m going. Boss Builders, my company, will be doing the same thing. I’m much closer to the end of this journey than the beginning so I want to be very conscious of what I leave behind to stand as a powerful legacy.
This year I took up pottery as a hobby. As part of my plans for next year, I’m creating a legacy item called Grandpa’s Coffee Cup. When I was a kid, I used to watch my grandpa drinking coffee each morning with his Knott’s Berry Farm mug. It wasn’t anything special, but it reminded me of him. It is the one thing I wished I had from him.
Inspired by that idea, I thought about what items would I want on my cup so my grandkids could one day learn much about me by just looking at that stained cup. There might be some of my favorite sayings. Maybe some pictures of things I love. Small sculptures embedded onto the cup of things uniquely me. It will have my favorite colors. The act of creating it will be therapeutic. I hope the act of eventually receiving it will bring my grandkids some joy and amazing memories rather than sorrow.
What about you? A new year is right around the corner. What will you carry with you into the New Year? More importantly, what will you leave behind?
