“What do you want people to say about you at your funeral?” is a trope often asked rhetorically by authors, business people, success “coaches”, podcasters, behavioral economists, psychologists and motivational speakers are talking about money, financial success, careers, meaning and purpose.
Its overuse has become worse than referencing the marshmallow experiment.
I think that people who profess to care about this are lying to us (and themselves). They don’t want others to say great things at their eulogy. They want others to say great things about them today, when they are alive and can bask in the glory.
I imagine it’s comforting to be delusional enough to think that you will be remembered after you die. It’s a false promise. It ain’t gonna happen for you, me and the other 99.99%.
For the rarest of rare famous individuals who do get remembered, at best they’ll have a few lines on wikipedia, a misattributed quote or a paragraph in a history book that nobody reads.
Eulogy values are the sales pitch that hucksters who want your money use to position their latest business promotion as something more than a money grubbing hustle.
They are also deployed by people who have already made their fortunes to now proclaim that wealth isn’t their most important value (now that they have wealth, of course).
Don’t believe the hype.
I’ve been poor. I’ve been not poor. It’s much easier to be on the not poor side of the spectrum.
I have watched people decline into death. They aren’t thinking about their eulogy or their legacy. Before the dying person gets too bad, they are thinking about their loved ones and how to make their death (and related after-death issues) easier for them.
When the dying person’s condition deteriorates, their thinking erodes. Their interest and capability to interact in the world declines.
Eventually their mind shuts down song with their body. They sleep a lot. They stop eating. They lose interest in nearly everything. That’s the dying I’ve seen. (Obviously it is different for sudden deaths, accidents, etc.).
My recommendation, for those of you who are in the midst of building your life, accelerating your career, and contemplating your legacy is to be the person you want to be today. Do it right now for the people around you, the people you love and yourself.
If you find you still want something more said, I suggest prepaying for a tombstone and a eulogy in the newspaper. That way, you can write whatever bullshit you want others to believe about you after you’re dead.
My own creative and somewhat funny epitaph is “This took longer and cost more than I expected.”
However, I’m too cheap to have a grave with a tombstone. I have left clear guidance to spend the least possible on me after I’m dead and instead direct any money left to the people and organizations I care about.
I have nobody who will remember me once I’m gone. I could care less about being memorialized.
I hope, whenever anyone thinks of me, they think, “He was a decent and kind man.” But if they don’t, whatever.
I can live with that. And I will die with that.
