Legacy

When I was a little boy, after a hard day of playing with my toys and spreading out a seemingly endless array of paraphernalia all over the floor of my room, my parents used to constantly remind me of the importance of putting away all my play things rather than leaving them scattered around. It is fine for me to bring out all I feel I needed in order to have a fun afternoon, they said, but when I was finished - at the end of my time - it was my responsibility to return my room to how it was before I began the play day and, if possible, leave it even a bit more orderly and organized than it was at the outset. I always asked why and lately, perhaps now more than ever, I have come to appreciate their response. It was my responsibility, my parents said, to leave my room in good order as a way of helping not only me but others get a better start on the next day.

These many years later I have come to interpret my parents' response as a small lesson about legacy. In the case of putting my toys away, my parents were talking about my own personal legacy toward myself. But as I have gotten older, I have come to equate the views of my parents with those expressed many years before either I or my parents came on the scene by philosopher Edmund Burke. In one of his many writings, Burke talked of a "partnership" between "those who are living and those who are to be born." The current generation, he said, have a responsibility to leave those that follow a habitation rather than a ruin.

This relates to how all of us communicate. As communicators, what kind of legacy do we wish to leave behind? Do we wish to be remembered as someone who sought to build bridges or someone who did not? Do we wish to be remembered as someone who sought to establish an atmosphere of mutual respect and collegiality or who did not? In my personal and professional life I encounter those who care about those sorts of things and those who do not. I also see people do not even view their style of communication as having impact on others or on what is carried on when they are no longer present. This is short sighted and tragic because how we communicate does shape the present and affect the future. It is part of our legacy.