Reliving a part of your life
The legacy question for Friday, May 1st was: If you could relive some part of your life, what would you do differently?
In considering this question, I thought about some of the bad choices I've made. One that stands out is a relationship in college that brought me more pain than happiness. Yet, some of the people I met through that relationship are friends today. Lessons I learned and the person I became made me ready for the relationships I would have later, including the marriage I've had now for over 22 years. If I hadn't had that college romance, I probably wouldn't have been ready for a relationship with my husband Derek, if I had even managed to meet him.
Yet there are several seemingly minor parts of my life that I would like to do over. One that comes to mind is an insult screamed from a car when a woman "stole" my parking space after I had driven for too long with cranky kids in the car. The woman tried to approach me about it as we stood in line at the bank, but I was too embarrassed, proud, and insecure to handle it well. I didn't realize it then, but I was also still grieving the loss of my father and that affected my empathy for others. If I could go back, I think I'd almost prefer to relive the encounter in the bank rather than the parking lot. While I'm ashamed of how I handled both situations, I'm most ashamed of the fact that this woman tried to give me a chance to make things right and I still blew it.
Yet, was this encounter like the college romance, where I had to make the mistakes in order to really learn the life lesson? That could be, as I know that the sting of shame that memory brings motivates me to make sure that I treat others better than I treated that woman.
Almost all of my clients have some part of their lives they wish they could do over. Sometimes they get a chance to undo some of the damages from the past, but often that's not an option. Yet, like my college romance and my own burst of selfishness, many have taken lessons from it. I encourage them to write down the story of how they learned that lesson, so that it is preserved as part of their legacy.
I also encourage them to consider that lesson in how they develop their legacy plan. I ask questions like: Is this a lesson that your children and grandchildren will have to learn from experience? Or is it a lesson that maybe you can keep them from having to learn the hard way? How have you structured your estate plan and other components of your legacy plan to maximize the likelihood that your loved ones will either avoid that same experience or be assured of learning that lesson?
What part of your life would you change, and what have you done to preserve the legacy that answer reveals?
In considering this question, I thought about some of the bad choices I've made. One that stands out is a relationship in college that brought me more pain than happiness. Yet, some of the people I met through that relationship are friends today. Lessons I learned and the person I became made me ready for the relationships I would have later, including the marriage I've had now for over 22 years. If I hadn't had that college romance, I probably wouldn't have been ready for a relationship with my husband Derek, if I had even managed to meet him.
Yet there are several seemingly minor parts of my life that I would like to do over. One that comes to mind is an insult screamed from a car when a woman "stole" my parking space after I had driven for too long with cranky kids in the car. The woman tried to approach me about it as we stood in line at the bank, but I was too embarrassed, proud, and insecure to handle it well. I didn't realize it then, but I was also still grieving the loss of my father and that affected my empathy for others. If I could go back, I think I'd almost prefer to relive the encounter in the bank rather than the parking lot. While I'm ashamed of how I handled both situations, I'm most ashamed of the fact that this woman tried to give me a chance to make things right and I still blew it.
Yet, was this encounter like the college romance, where I had to make the mistakes in order to really learn the life lesson? That could be, as I know that the sting of shame that memory brings motivates me to make sure that I treat others better than I treated that woman.
Almost all of my clients have some part of their lives they wish they could do over. Sometimes they get a chance to undo some of the damages from the past, but often that's not an option. Yet, like my college romance and my own burst of selfishness, many have taken lessons from it. I encourage them to write down the story of how they learned that lesson, so that it is preserved as part of their legacy.
I also encourage them to consider that lesson in how they develop their legacy plan. I ask questions like: Is this a lesson that your children and grandchildren will have to learn from experience? Or is it a lesson that maybe you can keep them from having to learn the hard way? How have you structured your estate plan and other components of your legacy plan to maximize the likelihood that your loved ones will either avoid that same experience or be assured of learning that lesson?
What part of your life would you change, and what have you done to preserve the legacy that answer reveals?
Posted by Karen Brady at 5/2/2009 9:10 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: wealth attorney business estate legacy lawyer estate plan inheritance values Colorado
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: wealth attorney business estate legacy lawyer estate plan inheritance values Colorado
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