Will it Matter in 75 Years?

When I was in law school, I and the student sitting next to me would look at each other at times and say "In 75 years, it won't matter." Most likely about a grade or some such thing. It certainly didn't matter a few years after I graduated what my grade point average was. What mattered was that I was working and doing a good job. 

I remember someone saying to me that he wanted to know where he was on the bar exam pass list. My response was I didn't really care as long as I was the last person on the list. They don't tell you your ranking for this, and, no employer ever asked me where I ranked on the bar exam pass list. 

I'm not sure why, but I have been thinking more lately about the things that have happened in my life or things that I've done. Very few of them will matter in 75 years. What matters is the work that I've done and the ripple effect it has over time. Have I been kind, generous, compassionate, and the like? Have I lived my life more and more so that I walk more gently on this earth? I hope so to all of this. 

What matters is how we treat the earth, the air we breathe, the water we drink. It matters that we don't continue to be rapacious. The Bible doesn't say that money is the root of all evil, it actually says that the love of money is the root of all evil. What matters to me is that I have enough to take care of myself, to give to charity when I can and so on. What on earth, after all, can the extremely rich people and huge corporations need or want with multiple multi millions or billions of dollars? What good does hanging onto all that money do if it's not out in the world helping? Beats me. 

There is an interesting documentary based partly on a Native American legend of the sleeping cannibal giant and living so that we don't wake it. Unfortunately, quite a few people seem to be living in a way that will wake it. Fortunately, many, many people are living in a way that says that they believe that what they do will matter in 75 years.

I hope that I am at least to a small extent. 

This is a link to the trailer for the documentary called "Dancing with the Cannibal Giant:" https://vimeo.com/288565530. The documentary, by the way, provides hope.

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The photograph is a flowering crab apple flower. It's from the tree out front of my condo. Please click here if you would like to know more about me, my services and my book, Opening the Heart: Meditations on How to Be.