“The family is in need of a charted accountant.”

“You need to be the first XYZ in the family.”

“Let me teach you the ins and outs of the business I so tirelessly built from scratch so you can take over the ‘family legacy’.”

Legacy, a timeless gift or just peer pressure to keep the family name relevant in discussions. The dictionary gives multiple definitions of the word. It is an inheritance left in a will, an applicant is given first preference because of parental or relational influences, and in computing, is related to suspended software or hardware which is difficult to replace because of the way it is widespread. The name in itself is positive, has positive perks and intentions, which leads to the burning question: do humans leave a legacy allowing freewill for the next generation to discover their talent(s) and flourish in their gifts or does it leave an entanglement between the retired/deceased to selfishly pay forward what they stood for/believed in thus keeping them ‘honourable’ and ‘relevant’?

Leaving the next generation with a predetermined steering wheel to never discover their true God-given talent or purpose. Is the child of a successful soccer player meant to be programmed into a sports management career? Is the daughter of a successful tech-head meant to continue finding internet solutions to keep the company the parent built from scratch alive? What happens when she decides to sell creative control in order to fund her career in singing, acting, law, or even entrepreneurship in a different field, say agriculture? Is it fair for her to be stuck in her parent’s last wishes and continue with internet solutions? Or even worse, do unto the next generation what the previous generation did unto her? 

I once heard somewhere that there is nothing more powerful than a made-up mind, with this being said, I urge you (as you are reading this right now) to allow the generation after you to harness their talent. Should you leave a legacy, let it be for them to expand using their divine craft and not to programme or channel them to fill your shoes, as they may need a bigger size to steer the legacy to greatness.