Most of us are really good at looking back at what we often refer to as the “good ole days”. We love to wax nostalgic about how good things were way back when; but today I want us to instead take a look at the road ahead. How far ahead do we want to look? Well, let’s look out into the future to the time when we will no longer be here. What kind of legacy will we leave behind? Legacy usually refers to the material things like houses, land, and financial assets we leave behind in our last will and testament.

In the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams plays Professor Keating, a prep school English Teacher. In one poignant moment in the movie he quotes Whitman to his students, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be”? That, my friends is a good question for all of us to consider, what verse will you contribute to this great play in which all of us have a part to play?

I know there are a few of you who may have accomplished great things or accumulated a great deal of wealth which you plan to pass along to your heirs, and you may think of these things as your legacy. Granted, those things are definitely a part of our legacy. But if you are a parent, I would contend that you will leave something much more valuable behind. I believe the greatest legacy we parents will leave behind is to simply raise our children as good people, good citizens, and good neighbors, people who will make a positive impact on the world we leave behind. I would challenge anyone who has children to debate this point.

If we can in fact agree that this is our greatest potential legacy, then as we take that look ahead we must consider something. Does the life we are living, or to use Professor Keating’s words, does the verse we are contributing, support what we believe is our life’s most important work? Are we spending our resources, including especially our time, in a way that supports our belief that our children are in fact our greatest legacy?

In my life, I have had the privilege to know and sometimes work with people who would be considered extremely successful by outside observers. But in a few sad cases, if you look behind the curtain so to speak, you would see a life littered with broken promises, broken relationships, and broken hearts. I have heard it said that our children are in fact the only things in life that we can “take with us”. So today, as we take that look ahead, I would simply like to suggest that we parents take a little time to think about our legacy.