The rest will follow

In a few months, I’ll be starting graduate school and embarking on a new adventure. As I’m leaving the job I have loved for the past year and a half, packing up my childhood bedroom in my parents’ home and saying goodbye to friends I won’t see for months or perhaps even years, I wonder, have I done enough? Was it enough? Did I do enough to make a difference? Am I leaving behind a legacy?

I am reading a book called Briefly Perfectly Human by Alua Arthur, who works as a death doula, spending time with people before and during their death, and with their families after. She talks about what we leave behind when we die. I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, but I’m still confronted with questions similar to those Arthur’s clients face as their time on earth ends — what have I done with the time I have been given? 

I want to make sure I’m leaving something good behind. I am not, of course, completely cut off from the people and places I am leaving behind. But I am closing a very important chapter in my life and starting a new one. It is a good time for reflection and to ask myself what kind of an impact I want to have on the world.

While in college, I was overwhelmed by all of the troubles I saw in the world and the hardships people around me were facing. I was trying to decide on a career path and kept returning to the question, “where can I do the most good?” I explored law, mental health, nursing, social work, even optometry. I asked professionals about their lives and tried to figure out how I would have both a meaningful career and a life I enjoyed. It all felt like too much. Then I found the quote, “All you have to do is leave it better than you found it.” 

At that moment, I felt a burden lifted from my shoulders. I would never find the “perfect” career to make the “most” impact on the world. We all have our roles to play and no one job is superior to another. All we can really do is make our small corners of the world better than they were before. We cannot save anyone — people have to save themselves — but we can make people feel loved in both small and large gestures. 

It really isn’t even that hard to make people feel special. Listen when they speak. Ask questions and follow-up on things they told you about. Text them on their birthday. Surprise them with flowers. Give them a hug and don’t let go first. Write them a note. Help them with a task. Relationships aren’t all that complicated when you break it down.

When my dad’s dad, my “Paw Paw,” passed away a few years ago, we had a celebration of life service for him and gave people the opportunity to share their memories of him. Every single person who shared said that they had a special connection with him, that yes, he loved everyone, but he loved them juuuuust a little more than everyone else. He truly made every person feel special. He listened when people spoke. He would ask about the books you were reading and how your friends were doing. He wasn’t afraid to hold space when people were struggling. Big emotions didn’t intimidate him. And he made each and every person feel seen.

When he died, I asked myself how I could keep his legacy going. He was never afraid to talk to strangers — in fact, I’m pretty sure he was personal acquaintances with every person on the planet — and I’ve tried stepping out of my comfort zone to talk to new people because of his example. He was deeply interested in people, so I make a point to listen with intention when people tell me about themselves. I want to leave people better than I found them, and if I’m following his example, isn’t he also still making an impact, even after his death? Will people treat others differently after meeting me too? Will I continue to change people’s lives even after I’m gone, whether I’m moving away or passing on? How do I know?

How do I live with the knowledge that I’ll never really be sure? How do I make peace with this uncertainty? How do you?

I don’t have answers. I wish I did. But these are the questions that I consider as I look at the flowers my friend brought me a few days ago. The flowers don’t grow because they’re trying to accomplish anything beyond life, yet bees and wasps are able to eat from them. Small animals make their homes among the leaves. And we enjoy their beauty. They are leaving the world better than before and it’s not even on purpose. Perhaps that’s all we need to do too — we need to live, and the rest will follow.