** Special May announcement, March saw the publication of the very first book in a six novella dystopian series I’ve been working on since early 2015. “Dark World : The Surface Girl” only$0.99 on kindle, or FREE if you’re a part of Kindle Unlimited! Check it out!
For the sake of blogging and self-exploration and contemplation, I answer a question a day off of this list.
Today’s question : What’s the one thing you’d like others to remember about you at the end of your life?
This is a hard question for me because I worked very hard to get to a point where I’m not allowing anyone else’s “opinion” or “judgement” of me to influence the values and standards to which I hold myself accountable for. No one is me but me, no one has walked in my shoes but me and therefor no one has enough comprehensive knowledge about me in order to form an opinion that would be considered a valid/well rounded view of who I really am.
Going on that, I can’t control anyone’s opinion or view of me, and I stopped trying to. I simply focus on living my life according to my passions and values, and if I mess something up I try to, not “fix” it, but deal with it as best as I can and move forward. You can be Mother Theresa to thousands of people, but if you treat one person badly, their negative opinion you, while it may not be the way you view yourself, is real and valid to them and you need to accept that, but you don’t need to define yourself by it. Personally, if I hurt someone, all I can do is acknowledge the validity of their feelings and apologize. How they continue to view me after that is out of my hands.
So as far as what I want someone to remember, it depends on the person, completely. There’s no “one” answer to this question. For some people I hope they think of me as a symbol of the worst of themselves, some pretty awful things they’ve done that they’ve never found the integrity to take responsibility for. I hope the memory of the poor ways in which they treated me weighs on them, and I don’t say that out of spite or malice but out of a belief in karma. Others, I hope they remember me in a positive way and the good I’ve done in their lives, and others still, I hope they remember that even though I am not a perfect person, I have a good heart.
But ultimately I’m more concerned about the “now” than “the end of my life.” We all influence the lives we cross paths with in the now, and we can leave a lasting impact, either good or bad, on others long before, and long after our death.
Kell Frillman - Author 