How do I want to be remembered?

“I came, I saw, I made it awkward.”

Julius Caesar went down in history, remembered for his military conquests and the quote “I came. I saw. I conquered”). The remembrance of my life most certainly won’t go down that way, so I chose a modified version.

This post is prompted by a question to Storyworth that our older daughter (Christina) posted for me this week “How do you want to be remembered?” which is the last Storyworth post of this 2024 volume. It happens to correspond to the timing of the last post I will make to my Retired Techie Substack this year. As such, for the first time, I will combine the efforts with this book volume and my Substack.

There may be a difference in how I want to be remembered and how I will be remembered. It struck me over the Thanksgiving holiday when I sent a friend some photos from our college days, and he wrote this…

I think many who read this Substack may get the wrong impression. I’m doing very OK! My very personal posts are just a way of helping me to process what I’m going through, share it with others, and hopefully get a better understanding (through the interaction) of how others are experiencing the world, too!

For some reason, in our society, I know this sharing can feel awkward. I am hoping to play a small role in sparking conversation that doesn’t make it awkward!

So, in terms of how I’d like to be remembered, I suppose three concepts come to mind: fair, diligent, and always seeking to improve.

“Fair” may be a euphemism for perhaps being overly objective or perhaps more positively, exercising radical candor. Perhaps, it could be a marker for ASD (which my kids insist I have an undiagnosed case of). Or perhaps, it could just be the way I have been socialized over time. However, I think even when people don’t agree with me (and I don’t agree with them), I believe most people would still believe that I have been “fair.”

“Diligent” is a word I selected because I believe it better represents the level of conscientiousness I try to apply to everything. I wouldn’t necessarily give myself the term “hard-working.” Even though I believe there are periods in my life where I have worked hard, I did choose to retire at 51. It’s probably hard to call anyone who retires early “hard-working.” Yet, I probably put more thought into the decision than most!

“Always seeking to improve” is something I take very seriously. The real motivation for me to start this Substack was to force myself to put my thoughts into words. The expression “Thought. Word. Deed.” is largely used in a religious context, but it also plays well into psychology and how we get better. It’s not just enough to think the right thoughts but also to express them in words before actually doing them. For me, writing down these thoughts has been in service to acting on them! So, whether I’m reflecting in the Storyworth book or reflecting on Substack, this has all been in service of working on myself, and I hope to bring others along on this journey with me!

In the meantime, these thoughts can feel awkward to me and likely everyone else. For now, I’m going with trying to be remembered as “fair, diligent, and always seeking to improve.” This may change over time, but this is where I’ll close off the year and this volume of the series!