Life of legacy and living the childhood dreams

On a recent visit to the Crosswords bookstore, my eyes fixated on this very interesting book called “The last lecture” by one Mr. Randy Pausch. The excerpt looked very appealing, with the statements “If you were to give your last lecture, what would it be?” and “We cannot change the cards that we are dealt, just how we play the hand“. So, I digged in and read few pages inside, and it was truly thought provoking. Here was a guy in the late 40’s who gets diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and having only the next 3 to 6 months of good health. How would anyone take such a disastrous news? The book is a deep dive into a fantastic thought process of handling the cards that have been dealt, how to live a life pursuing dreams of the self and that of the closed ones. I bought the book, and it was one of the most self-introspective books that I ever read, and I highly recommend everyone to read this book and get a fresh perspective of life.

There are several thought-provoking aspects in this book. However, two of the points he wrote about really stood out and got me very emotionally connected: First was when the author wrote about his feelings on how his shortened life would impact his relationship with his three kids, who were 8, 5 and 2 years old respectively. The kids wouldn’t have many memories of their dad, especially the 2-year-old daughter, who infact wouldn’t have any. What legacy, stories and memories he would leave behind? The second was how he didn’t regret dying; he had well and truly lived his life, pursuing and achieving most of his childhood dreams. To always keep pursuing these two aspects when living our lives were the most important take aways from this book.

We remember people from what legacy they leave behind: The values they stood for, the stories they told, and the way they lived their life. More so, for the people that you personally know. Your father, mother, uncles, aunts, grandparents, close friends and relatives. Yes, there is the financial legacy, but what is even more important is the emotional legacy that has had a profound impact on us. What do we remember about them? What kind of things, places and situations remind us of them? People who have lost either their father or mother at a young age have a limited memory about them. In great despair, they recount on how their parent would have given them utmost care and love and how they could have been a different person themselves. Leaving a legacy in a personal sense, then, is about those close moments together and piling up meaningful memories.

Randy, the author, tried to spend most of his remaining time on earth, with his loved ones, making memories with each of his kids. He took them on vacations and day outs, wrote blogs, gave speeches (available on YouTube), and expressed his deep love for his family at every possible instance. This way, his family could go back to these contents and see how much he loved all of them. He had limited time, and he made the most of it. He took kids to theme parks and lived each of their final moments together.

I have always tried to spend good time with my daughter, as much as I can, with a hope that she will remember these moments we shared together, for the rest of her life. We play games, both indoor and outdoor, have thoughtful conversations, travel to new places, eat good food, etc. Most of my blogs include an element of my interactions with our daughter, this I believe is an even better way of documenting our moments, in a digital world, out in the public view. 

We click photographs for memories. Hardcopies are the best; but these days we have to contend with the digital ones though. Click pictures, make videos, write down your thoughts, express your feelings, and enjoy your moments together. I keep remembering my paternal grandmother every now and then, for what she stood, her strong beliefs, her discipline and pursuit of education. Trying to be more disciplined, is probably her greatest legacy. I was lucky enough to have spent significant time with her. I now almost every day sing devotional hymns at the sunset time (a habit she instilled during my childhood), only now I realize its meditational values.

Coming to the second and probably the most important takeaway from this book is living your dreams, and also the dreams of your loved ones. As a kid, all of us have had dreams, some as little as visiting the local popular restaurant or theme park, some as big as meeting a famous personality. A great life is one where we manage to accomplish most of our dreams. Randy had a lot of dreams like working at Disney, experiencing zero gravity, authoring an article in the World Book encyclopedia, meeting his childhood hero Captain Kirk from Star Trek series, winning stuffed animals at carnivals, etc . He lived them all during the course of his life. Of course, there were some dreams that he couldn’t achieve, like playing in the NFL. But during his training for football, he inculcated some amazing personal traits. We keep having newer and bigger dreams, it’s an ever-moving goal post, but having lived most of one’s cherished dreams is a great way to have lived life.

The second aspect of this dream fulfillment is equally important: Living the dreams of others. Our family members also have dreams, some want to travel around the world, some want to live the high life, eat good food, enjoy vacations. Fulfilling their dreams (within our financial means, of course) is also a great way to live, and in the process also create the legacy that we discussed in the first point. It’s good to list down the personal and family dreams, even best if you could find some common dreams and achieve them together. My daughter loves theme parks, my wife loves shopping in big cities, and we all love travelling together, exploring new places, sightseeing, trying new experiences (boating, art workshops, museums, etc) and new delicacies, these are avenues for some great memories.

When I was introduced to computers and programming in high school, I was so fascinated and had this dream of becoming a computer engineer. As luck would have it, I managed to be one, now for more than 20+ years. When I was around 9 years old, I happened to watch 1990 football world cup, and for some reasons I got immensely drawn towards Jurgen Klinsman & his team, and a dream arose of visiting the Deutschland. Again, got lucky to have visited Germany several times since 2007. I love mountains, and one of my dreams was to see Mt.Everest with my bare eyes, this was achieved in the autumn of 2021 during our Tibet visit. Lucky that we reached just at the sunset time and there she shone like a prized jewel reflecting the sunrays towards us showing her full face to her ardent devotee. I tried to absorb as much view as possible at that given moment. Simply magnificent! There were many such dreams like visiting Hampi, Ladakh, Thanjavur, Rajasthan, and several other foreign destinations that I was absolutely lucky to have completed. There are more dream destinations, of course, and I hope to make it in coming years. Dreams of writing best-selling books, building a company, running a half marathon, need to list them all and see how to knock them off.

And then there are dreams of others. Parents and grandparents dream of their kids and grandkids accomplishing great things. My grandmother, having seen many folks from my small town visit the US, always had a dream that I could make it someday, too. It happened in 2006, and my grandmother was probably the happiest lady in town, brimming with pride. I had invited my parents and in-laws on a trip to Hongkong, when we were living there for a year. Everyone loved the experience, dream come true for most, taking an international flight, visiting an international destination and experiencing a different lifestyle, for the first time. I had also invited my parents to Shanghai, and we did lot of trips in a month. My father would go gaga about the trip, and apparently, he had told one of my aunts that he had enjoyed it thoroughly and would not regret dying from now on. No, I am not boasting, I just want to highlight how we sometimes (unknowingly) achieve the dreams of our near and dear ones, especially those unexpressed ones.

So, two things it is to lead a purpose driven life: Building up emotional legacy with kids/loved ones and fulfilling the dreams of the self/others. I wish you all a very happy new year 2024, may God bless you with health, prosperity and great bonding time with family and friends. May all your dreams come true!