A Wikipedia for yourself
Or how we can fill in our eulogy.
I meant it, metaphorically.
I remembered looking at the top of a building in Hanoi and wondering what would be next, what the future would look like.
The fascination of life, along with the ups, downs, constant changes, brings us to a wheel that keeps rolling and when the rolling stops, we stop. We’d all die one day, eventually.
The imaginary Wikipedia pages for ourselves would as such contain details of our early childhood, education, the memories, the winnings, the losing and whatsoever. It’s a fact, yet blended with testimonials that form a large part of our collection.
But the most memorable part isn’t about the achievements, it’s about how we used to live as a human being, as a person who made our own impact on the people around us.
In our eulogy, we won’t be mentioned our achievement records in terms of the titles we held, the medals we got, how successful our business was. It was more about how happy our life was, how we were loved by family, friends and our significant others.
To live is to experience an interesting life, and to die is to leave the lingering impressions of us.
🔥Links for this week
Life lessons from the Death Bed. “I’ve learned that it is so important not to get lost in the weeds of everyday life. If today sucked, oh well. There’s always tomorrow. And at least on our bad days, we still have people around us who love us, help us, and want the best for us. I’ve learned to savor each moment, and I’ve learned to be thankful, because things can very quickly change. But most importantly, I’ve learned that when I leave this earth for a better home someday, the only thing I’ll take is what I gave away.”
The slow death of authenticity in an attention economy. Twitter is no longer the platform that is used to be, with many leaving for Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky.
Jonny Kim. Navy SEAL, Doctor, Astronaut. The Unimaginable Path (video link below). A human being who achieved unbelievable feasts yet is always humble. You won’t find much of him from social media.