bythemethod.com blog

I hope that all of us have a very long time get before we have to face death and yet it is an important thing to think about from time to time. I guess all of us would like to leave something by which we could be remembered at least for a little while after we are gone. Yet it always seems to me that it is better to leave anywhere with the knowledge that your presence has made that place a better one. Leaving a legacy doesn’t have to just be about when you die – you should leave some kind of legacy wherever you go.

I don’t mean that it will always be a happier place or more fun place but that somehow we have made things there a little better. I think sometimes the only way to make things better it is cause a few upsets but perhaps that is a subject for another day.

What are you going to leave today? How are you going to make the places you have been better?

Success is defined in many different ways and I guess ultimately it will depend on the individual. One person will see success as owning lots of stuff another as having fun all the time, another will see success as both of these things.

For me success is a whole of life concern. If you narrow it down to one area of life then you are going to have a life that is unbalanced. You may think you are happy like this but often balance only becomes important to you when something unexpected happens. I know it’s an old cliche but people really don’t say that they wish they had spent more time at the office on their deathbead.  For a while I was a Methodist Minister and it was my privilege to be with people during some of the happiest and saddest times of their lives. I can honestly say that when people were suffering they didn’t say “at least I’ve got lots of money” but they would often talk about the difference that relationships made in their life. For them at that time success was having people to support you.

I love money and what it can buy but it can’t buy you the most important things in life. If you are basing your success only on wealth then I think you are doing the wrong thing. To make money is not a sin but to make money your master is.

So what is success for you?