Legacy
When I was younger I spent a lot of time thinking about my legacy. Now, I do too but in a very different way. I came up in the age right after the dot com boom and bust. I learned how to program and build web and mobile apps in 2003. In fact, I remember getting a ride home with a friend of mine in Comp Sci in 3rd year who told me he picked up a book about Rails. I had no idea what he was talking about. I worshiped Musk, Thiel, Levchin, Rose, Ferriss and others. These were my tech idols and gods and I would join them in olympus soon.
That idea changed when I had kids as so many things do. I turned down a lucrative offer from Airbnb as it would have meant a move to San Francisco, something my wife and I didn’t want for our kids. I started realizing that the thing that a lot of people feel like they need and are chasing, I already had. I had a purpose and it was, these kids. This family.
As we move into the holiday season, I get more reflective. Choices I’ve made, doors that were open, now closed, new doors about to open. The constant is children, and family and life and legacy. I love the movie a Christmas Carol, I watch it 3-4 times a year around Christmas time. Different avatars, the best being Mickey’s Christmas Carol. I also love the movie the Family Man as I resonate with that character. I have a fear right now, that I am living in that life. That I will wake up ten years ago, to that time I almost moved to San Francisco and this path, this family filled life will be a dream that I can’t get back to and fades more and more over time. That’s why I have to enjoy each day, each moment here, as I could wake up tomorrow and know the choice I need to make.
There is no right or wrong way to do it, that much is clear. I do my best not to judge and be happy for people in life making choices, good and bad and living with those choices. I just know for me, as hard as it is to say, legacy is real and it trumps ambition.
