What Do You Want to Be Known For?
I had recently subscribed to a newsletter, in which Nikhil Krishnan, runs an interesting experiment. He asks a question every week and asks his subscriber to respond. In the next week, he publishes the best answers for the question. Think it like Quora run over email for a small set of audience.
One of the fascinating question he had recently asked is:
How do you want your legacy to be remembered? In other words, what do you want to be known for?
David Brooks calls this as the [Eulogy Virtues.] https://medium.com/@MikeSturm/resume-virtues-eulogy-virtues-and-the-impact-of-small-moments-dc2742fbac3b What kind of eulogy you want to be read in comparison with the other key virtues, which we all give priority to: Resume Virutes, that makes us employable or earns money.
This is my attempt to answer this question:
I want to be remembered as an awesome dad.
Stoically, I am aware that I cannot influence any other person in my life. Even my son. But I can control only my actions and my behaviour. I am not striving for my son’s audience in me to show my awesomeness. I have been bestowed by a great set of parents and lucky to have lovely spouse. So I simply want to be the best of myself in whatever amount of time possible to my son and to my family.
My dad has been a huge influence on me. I have been a son, who went through the phase of resisting to see his values, fighting with his views in my teenage and slowly respecting & embracing his views and values. So, if I have some iota of influence in my son in the future, I hope I am remembered as a fond and a loving person.