9.7 How will you be remembered?
We all have some degree of control over how we will be remembered after our death. The way we live our lives and the daily choices that we make, impact how and for what we will be remembered. According to the Academy of Ideas (January 31, 2018, 4:08), the problem is that too many of us waste time on things that are inconsequential, “of little…positive value” to our lives or the lives of others (e.g., bad/self-destructive habits, unhealthy relationships, dead-end jobs). We often move through life distracted, neither living in nor appreciating the present (Abramson, November 13, 2019), and failing to recognize that what we do, how we live our lives and treat others today, is a reflection of who we are, that will ultimately impact how we are remembered.
VIDEO: Rascal Flatts – How they remember you
The following lyric video of the Rascal Flatts song “How they will remember you” asks some important questions about how the choices we make and how we live our lives will impact how we are remembered after our death.
Although the notion of leaving a legacy is often associated with the future and the need to strive for some ideal of who we should be and what we should achieve during our lifetime, it is actually more about understanding ourselves and being true to that person (Bland, 2020). This involves knowing what a rewarding and satisfying life means to us, and how to achieve it (Bland, 2020; Payne et al., 2022). Taking the time to reflect on our lives (and deaths), through writing our own obituary and/or eulogy, can be a pathway toward self-understanding and a happier more fulfilling life (Abramson, November 12, 2019; Wong, 2017).
The idea of opening ourselves (and those around us) to honest, matter-of-fact conversations about life and death is part of the death positivity movement (see Chapter on Let’s Talk About Death & Dying) (Walker, February 15, 2020). According to Bland (2020), the experience of reflecting on and writing our end-of-life narratives (i.e., obituaries and eulogies) can be transformative, particularly for young adults. It can lead to a “shift in…direction…a greater sense of acceptance, appreciation, and awe toward the possibilities of living the life” we envision (Bland, 2020, p. 1). Such exercises can be eye opening, serving as a wake-up call or “an aspirational guide” for our lives (Evans, 2017, para. 11).
What We Can Learn From Obituaries
VIDEO: What I learned from 2,000 obituaries
In this video Lux Narayan, co-founder and CEO of analytics firm Unmetric, talks about his team’s research on New York Times obituaries and their findings regarding how “people make a positive dent in the social fabric of life.”
Writing Your Own Obituary
Click the links below to learn about writing your own obituary:
‘He was the greatest person ever’: What would you write in your own obituary?
How to write an obituary — A step-by-step guide
VIDEO: How to write your own obituary
In the following video, novelist Brad Meltzer talks about his experience with reading his own obituary and his struggle to answer the question of “how will you be remembered?”
Writing Your Own Eulogy
Click the following link to learn more about how to write your own eulogy:
A note from my dead self. Be Yourself
How to write a eulogy for yourself: Step-by-step
VIDEO: Imagine Your Own Funeral?
In this video, Kevin Shen asks a group of people to think about how they want to be remembered at their funeral, to write and share their own eulogy, and to talk about what they learned from this personal reflection exercise.