Tag: legacy

Notorious

Come on! Aim for the edges.

My grandfather gave the order from across the ping pong table. I paused for a moment, unsure of myself.

This was my paternal grandfather – my dad’s dad. I had spent less time with him in my youth than I had my other grandfather – my mother’s father, who I’ve written about extensively. As such, I couldn’t quite get a read on him.

My grandfather held a sizable lead in this ping pong match. So, what was behind his command?

Was he trying to coach me up? To let me back into the game? To mess with my head and finish me off?

The first explanation seemed the simplest – and the least sinister. So, I let the words Aim for the edges wash over me.

I took a deep breath. I readied my paddle. And I served the ball across the table with confidence.

My grandfather volleyed the ball back to me, and I angled my paddle toward the far edge of the table.

One well-placed swing sent the ball screaming toward the white stripe at the table’s edge. The ball hit that stripe flush, just beyond the net. Then it careened further and further away from the table.

It was a perfect shot. The best one I’d ever hit.

But my grandfather refused to let it go uncontested. He lunged to his right, trying to salvage the point.

This was ill-advised.

Not only did my grandfather fail to reach the ball, but he also failed to keep his balance. He fell like a Ponderosa Pine, landing with full force on his right shoulder.

That landing spot was triple padded. Carpet on top of rubber on top of foam. Such are the luxuries of setting up a ping pong table in a condominium’s aerobics room.

But it didn’t matter.

The sheer force of impact broke my grandfather’s shoulder in two places.

The game was over. And so was life as I knew it.

My grandfather recovered from his injury in a matter of months.

But for years, family gatherings got a bit testy.

So, you’re the one who broke your grandfather…over a game of ping pong, my relatives would exclaim to me. Why would you do that?

The critique seemed a bit tongue-in-cheek. But I quickly learned that these relatives were not joking.

I couldn’t find an explanation that would ease the tension. No one wanted to hear that the injury was an accident, that I won that point, or that my grandfather told me to hit the ball where I did.

Despite my best intentions, I felt like Persona Non Grata. I was notorious.

Eventually, my family moved on. I stopped getting grief and started to attend these gatherings uninhibited.

But this whole experience cast a long shadow.

I still don’t think I’ve played ping pong since my grandfather’s injury decades ago. And I’m wary about engaging in any athletic actitivies with my relatives.

What if I get hurt, or get someone else hurt? I’ll never hear the end of it.

An unfortunate sequence of events has literally shifted family dynamics.

And this experience is far from unique.

There’s a famous Internet image of a young girl staring, nonplussed, away from the camera.

The image has been dubbed Side Eyeing Chloe, after the then-toddler it profiles. And it’s been repurposed for countless memes and GIFs.

The backstory behind this image is relatively ordinary. Chloe’s parents surprise her by saying that the family is heading to Disneyland. But instead of letting out a gleeful shriek, Chloe stares off to the side, her mouth slightly agape.

No one quite knows what young Chloe was actually thinking at the time. Was she confused? Concerned? Secretly elated?

It doesn’t really matter. The Internet saw the side-eyed glance and filled in the blanks.

Now, toddler Chloe’s face is one Google search away. She’s notorious. And real-life Chloe – now a teenager – is trapped in that notoriety.

I’ve never met Chloe. But I feel for her.

It’s no fun to have your narrative co-opted. To be typecast for one image, one depiction, one outcome you set into motion.

It can lead you to abandon an activity you’re just starting to master. It can strain relationships with those you share a last name with. It can drag you through the dirt out of the blue.

Notorious is no way to be.

Not long ago, I traveled with my father and my paternal grandparents to a small town in Missouri.

My father was born in this town, while my grandfather was in medical school. But the family moved away shortly thereafter.

The medical school’s homecoming was going on while we were in town, and the school hosted a 5K race as part of the festivities. Despite not knowing the town or the terrain, I signed up.

The race was old school, with the director firing a starting gun and noting finishing times on a stopwatch. The course proved to be a challenge, with a vast section of it traversing thick woods on the edge of town.

I was up against it. But in the end, I was the first to break the tape. I received a large plaque for my efforts – a plaque that sits front and center on my mantle today.

Winning that race was certainly a thrill. But the first emotion I felt after crossing the finish line was relief.

I’d just won a race down the street from both my father’s first home and the medical school my grandfather had attended.

In a strange way, my grandfather had given me this opportunity to excel athletically. And I’d honored that opportunity by bringing the family name to the winner’s podium.

Maybe the ping pong debacle wouldn’t hang over me for eternity. Perhaps I’d be notorious in family circles for something positive.

I hope my experience is not an anomaly. I hope others made notorious get a chance at redemption.

Yet, that hope carries a burden to become reality. A burden with two sides.

It’s on the notorious to seize the opportunity at a fresh start. But it’s also on all of us to offer them an open mind and a second chance.

Chloe deserves to be more than Side Eyeing Chloe, just like I deserved to be more than The guy who broke his grandfather’s shoulder playing ping pong.

Let’s stop willfully tying a snippet from the past to the infinite future. Let’s give each other the grace we deserve instead.

Notorious no more. That’s something worth getting behind.

The Shadow of Legacy

It came from Sears.

A standard basketball hoop, anchored by a large plastic base.

My father assembled the rim, backboard, and metal support. Then he filled the cavity of the base with water from a garden hose. He screwed the cap atop the base shut and turned to my sister and me.

Alright kids. Have at it.

We took turns dribbling a basketball on the back patio. Then we took aim at the hoop.

This pattern repeated itself for years. My sister and I would head outside to battle it out, one on one, on the patio.

But this activity wasn’t relegated to our suburban home.

In nearby New York City, there were millions of basketball hoops. They could be found in parks, in courtyards and on rooftop terraces.

Most city dwellers didn’t have a backyard, like we did. They couldn’t long toss a baseball at home or hone their golf swing.

But they could hoop right in their neighborhood.  And sometimes, when I was in the big city, I’d join them.

Basketball was a New York thing. The city claimed the sport as its own, and I saw no reason to dispute those claims.

But then a funny thing happened.

I was watching the NCAA men’s basketball tournament one year, and the University of Connecticut’s squad made the championship game.

As Connecticut closed in on a national title, pundits exclaimed how unusual this all was. Where was Kentucky, or Kansas, or North Carolina?

I was confused.

Basketball was a city game. It was New York City’s game. Why would some country folk in Kansas or Kentucky or North Carolina lay claim to it?

Heck, even Connecticut wasn’t exactly the big city. But it was a close enough drive away.

What was going on?

I had much to learn.

Some time later, I took out a book from the school library about Dr. James Naismith.

Naismith, I learned, was a Canada native who made his way to the United States in the late 19th century. While working at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, Naismith invented a game for the patrons there.

Naismith mounted a wooden peach basket to the end wall of the gym. Then, he had the patrons toss a soccer ball into the elevated basket.

A competition soon followed, governed by 13 specific rules Naismith authored. Basketball was born.

I was stunned. Everything I thought I knew about the sport was wrong.

Basketball hadn’t come from New York City. It had been imported from New England – its pretentious neighbor to the northeast.

If anything, the University of Connecticut had a better claim to hoops hegemony than New York did. Naismith invented the game a mere 30 miles from the university’s campus.

But there were more shoes to drop.

Naismith, as it turns out, didn’t stay in Massachusetts all that long after inventing basketball. By the turn of the century, he’d headed west to Lawrence, Kansas.

Naismith joined the faculty at the University of Kansas, and he organized a basketball team there. The sport was still new, spreading across the country through the YMCA network. So, the early Kansas teams mostly took on squads from nearby YMCAs. After 9 years of this, Naismith stepped away to take on other duties at the school.

One of the players on those Kansas teams – Phog Allen – would return coach the squad several years later, leading it to decades of success. Two of Allen’s players – Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith – would go on to coach the University of Kentucky and the University of North Carolina, respectively. Their guidance helped put those programs on the map, solidifying them among the sport’s “Blue Bloods.”

Those pundits’ mentions of Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina after Connecticut reached the promised land? They were no accident, no coincidence.

Yes, basketball’s roots are planted in the fields of rural America, rather than the blacktop of the big city.

And it all had to do with the particulars of a Canadian’s resume.

I might have grown up playing basketball in the suburbs of New York City. But I didn’t plant my roots there.

I ultimately moved to Texas. And I’ve spent my entire adult life under Lone Star skies.

Many in my orbit struggled to come to terms with this at first. Sure, I’d moved for a job. But it wasn’t one in the oil industry, on a cattle ranch, or at NASA. There were plenty of other places I could have gone for the exact same vocation.

I understood this apprehension. After all, I once considered Kansas a basketball afterthought. But I refused to acquiesce to it.

Gradually, the apoplectic comments dwindled. Or maybe I stopped paying attention to them.

Then, the COVID pandemic hit. And the conversation changed.

Now, my perspective didn’t shift during this time. I didn’t leave Texas at all for 17 months during the international health crisis. And I didn’t even entertain the thought of living anywhere else.

But the story was far different for others all over the country. Plenty of people saw the pandemic disruption as an opportunity to relocate. And relocate they did.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this development. Sure, it was great to see millions planting new roots without facing a deluge of apprehension. But just how deeply were they planting those roots?

You see, over the years, I’ve come to appreciate what Dr. James Naismith did. By having a transient career, he not only spawned the game of basketball, but he helped grow it in multiple locales.

This was no small feat. There was no technology to spread news across the nation in a flash back then. And tradition ruled the roost.

Naismith had to evangelize the game in the communities where he was stationed. He had to use the scattershot geography of his resume to build grassroots connections.

He had to leave the shadow of legacy on the places he called home.

This is why basketball’s hall of fame in Springfield and Kansas’ home court in Lawrence carry Naismith’s name. It’s why Kansas’ arena is named for his contemporary – Phog Allen. It’s why Kentucky and North Carolina’s arenas sport the names of Allen’s contemporaries – Rupp and Smith.

The shadow of legacy brings gravitas to geography. Even if such geography is bestowed that legacy by happenstance.

But when a software developer writes code in Boise and uploads it to their employer’s servers in Silicon Valley, does that golden rule still apply?

I doubt it. And I mourn for our collective loss.

When I first moved to Texas, my resume matched my home address.

I was producing evening newscasts for a massive swath of West Texas, covering the daily events of Oil Country. On Friday nights, I was calling small town Dairy Queens to see if the employees knew the score of the local high school football game. I’d then report those scores on the air.

It really didn’t get more Texas than that.

Over the years, this professional connection to my state has dimmed. As a marketer in the technology space, I’ve long worked to reach national – even international – audiences. And my employer was acquired by a company based roughly a thousand miles from Texas some years ago.

Still, I take the shadow of legacy seriously.

I’ve joined groups in my city many of my personal and professional hobbies. I’ve seized many opportunities to volunteer in the area. I’ve supported across the State of Texas – in good times and bad. And I’ve supported both local sports teams and entertainers with steadfast vigor.

I might not end up as a household name in Texas, with buildings carrying my moniker. But this place is more than a line on my resume. It’s a part of me.

Texas is my home. And I want to give as much to it as it has to me.

It’s my sincere hope that those who’ve relocated in recent years consider a similar approach.

Yes, it’s easier than ever to swap out home addresses without facing a crucible. But if we cede the chance to build connection, we miss a giant opportunity.

So, let’s rebuild that connection. Let’s rediscover the shadow of legacy. Let’s nurture it and allow it to take root.

We’ll all be better for it.

How Will You Be Remembered?

Legacy.

It’s just one word, and three syllables.

But that word is anything but simple.

Legacy describes the lasting image of us after we’ve left the frame. It describes how we’ll be remembered.

And that can be a tricky subject to broach.

Much like an onion, there are layers to the concept of legacy.

There’s the layer of mortality. Of knowing there will be a time when we’ll no longer be able to add chapters to our story. This truth is as inconceivable as it is inevitable, and many of us struggle to come to terms with it.

There’s the layer of ego. Of obsessing over what others think of us and our accomplishments. Many of us are afflicted with this obsession to some degree, even as society frowns on such selfish fixations.

And then there’s the layer of control. Of when and where we have agency over our narrative.

This layer is the most complicated of the three.

It’s impossible for us to maintain complete control over our legacy, since it lives on long after our heart stops beating. After our light fades, how we’ll ultimately be remembered is anyone’s guess.

We might have a hunch, sure. But as the decades pass and societal norms evolve, what once seemed crystal clear becomes much murkier.

There are many examples of this phenomenon throughout the years. In fact, there’s now a well-known term for it — revisionist history.

And while it’s not a given that our legacy will be rewritten in this manner, it’s certainly a distinct possibility.

Even so, we do have some ability to influence our legacy. The way we live, the values we espouse, and our consistency of purpose can all feed the story others will tell of us.

Shaping that narrative is important work. It’s our only opportunity to have our say, which is why we take on the task so vigorously — even if there’s a chance it will end up fruitless.

It’s this delicate balance, this act of weaving a tale we have no final judgment over, that makes the subject of legacy so intriguing.

And it’s what makes How will you be remembered the most maddening question we face.

The matter of shaping our legacy often comes down to four words.

Do the right thing.

It seems like straightforward advice. Or even common sense.

But the right thing is open to interpretation.

In religious circles, it might mean attending a house of worship, following a certain diet and remaining abstinent until marriage.

In the world of organized crime, it might mean not telling the authorities about your co-conspirators, or not getting behind on your debts.

In the world of politics, it might mean prioritizing your base, or sticking it to the other side of the aisle.

In each instance, those following the code are doing the right thing. They’re staying on the right side of their community’s code of conduct. And they’re ensuring that community will look upon them fondly.

Many of us channel this spirit within our own day-to-day lives. We might not be religious zealots, or mafiosos, or members of the C-suite. But we still fixate on doing what our moral compass deems to be proper.

Through discipline and devotion, we take steps to build our narrative. And we use the community around us as a mirror to gauge our success.

Often times, we’ll use this confirmation bias as a sign of self-righteousness. We’ll assert that our version of the right thing is the one the world will approve of. We’ll believe that we’ll be remembered fondly for years to come, so long as we stick to the path we’ve been following.

But this is delusional.

Our version of the right thing might not be viewed by others as criminal, intolerant or unethical — the way the worlds of organized crime, religion or politics often are. But that version is still heavily biased by our specific worldview. And by the contours of the times we live in.

For instance, smoking was once considered fashionable. Buoyed by public popularity and reinforced by opportunistic advertising, packs of cigarettes were as commonplace as smartphones are today. Restaurants and bars billowed with cigarette smoke, and lighters were everywhere.

Around this time, the number of women in the workforce was increasing. But by and large, women found themselves confined to clerical roles. Hiring women based on their looks was considered acceptable behavior. And so were other practices we now consider discriminatory or abusive.

These days, we would not consider any of this the right thing.

Sure, there are plenty of smokers out there. And there is, sadly, plenty of misogynistic behavior as well. But these behaviors now come with a social stigma — a stigma that could impact our legacy.

Our world is better off because of this evolution. But that doesn’t give us license to act self-righteous.

For even if we’re don’t smoke or abuse women, we’re not doing everything right. There are parts of our day-to-day lives that future generations will look at just as unfavorably as we now look at smoking or gender discrimination.

Our legacy will be rewritten over time. And parts of it might end up tarnished.

There’s no way around it.

 

So, how should we approach the topic of legacy?

We can start by reframing the question.

We can stop concerning ourselves with how we’ll be remembered, and start thinking about how we’d like to be remembered.

This small tweak puts the power back in our hands. It gets everything back to two dimensions.

By looking at the question this way, we can imagine an ideal future. One unencumbered by the shifting of society and the razor’s edge of revisionist history.

Then, we can imagine how this ideal future would entertain our memory if we were no longer around. And we can work toward bringing that vision to fruition.

This is the way I approach the thorny question of legacy. It’s what grounds me. It’s what inspires me. And it’s what drives me to do my best each and every day.

We can all take a page from this book.

How will you be remembered is insignificant. How would you like to be remembered is everything.

The Moments That Matter

The glass stood on the kitchen counter, filled with Ovaltine chocolate milk. I watched with wide eyes as my father stood next to it, dressed to in his suit and tie.

I looked up at him, with a hopeful expression on my face.

“Could I have some too, daddy?”

Moments later, we were downing our glasses of Ovaltine together, the master and his three-year old apprentice.

***

The milk ritual was special to me. Maybe even sacred. It was the only time I could spend each day with the man I idolized so much, before he headed off to his advertising job in the big city. So I busted tail to the kitchen every morning, hoping to catch him before the glass was empty and my hopes were shattered.

But this day was different. Our time together would not be limited to a glass of milk, because I was going my father to that mystical job, the one that kept him from me so much.

I felt like a kid at Disney World. We got to take the train into the big city, then we walked down a street full of tall buildings until we got to one that looked like it touched the sky. We rode an elevator to the 32nd floor, and my father opened a glass door in a glass wall, entering an office suite that overlooked much of the city.

My father got me M&Ms and a Diet Coke from the vending machine, opened up Microsoft Word on his computer and left for a meeting. I stared mesmerizingly at the blank page before me on the computer screen, then hit hit the “g” key repeatedly, until the entire page was filled with it. When my father returned, I proudly showed him the “work” I’d done, and he laughed. Then, we went down the street to McDonalds for lunch.

***

By the time we got home that evening, I was convinced that my father had the coolest job ever — an occupation that made up for all the time we had to spend apart. But even though he tried to hide it, I had a feeling that he didn’t feel the way about his job that I did.

Truth is, my father was miserable — so miserable, in fact, that my mother felt compelled to utter the seven-word ultimatum that would come to define our family’s future: “Change your life or change your wife.”

My father made the wise decision, and soon that job in the fancy high-rise office was no more. He went to grad school and our lives changed. Even at a young age, this wasn’t lost on me; I remarked, “Now we can finally eat out again,” on the day he graduated.

Soon enough, my father was back on his feet as a teacher — a career he continues today, more than 20 years later. It was all strange to me, as I was in the early years of school myself at the time. But it was certainly nice to see him more each day, and to have summers off together.

***

Draw what you don’t want to be.

It’s an odd request, particularly when you’re 12 years old and those words are coming from a psychologist. But it didn’t take me more than a second to put pen to paper.

A few artistically-challenged moments later, I showed off my completed “masterpiece.” It was a photo of a sad-looking man, wearing a suit and holding a briefcase, waiting on a train platform.

The moment was jarring; I’d drawn my father from my early years.

It was clear that the normal 9 to 5 was a trap to me at that time. I’d felt the prison bars up close, and I was determined to avoid them. In the decade that followed, I charted a course far away from the traditional business field, ending up as a TV news producer in West Texas after I graduated college.

At the age of 25, I pivoted.

I moved back to a big city — Dallas in this case — and transitioned into a 9 to 5 career in the same marketing and advertising sector my father had left so many years before.

It had all come full circle.

***

In the early days of my second career, I spoke often about finishing what my father started. It didn’t matter that I was cutting my teeth in Internet marketing — a beast that didn’t exist 20 years earlier, when he was in the industry; to me, the symbiotic nature of our career journeys was too compelling to ignore, and it was a powerful motivator.

But then, I remembered the picture I’d drawn years before. I wasn’t becoming the man on the train platform, was I?

Thankfully, the answer was a resounding no.

I realized in that moment that despite the shared career field, my father and I were worlds apart. While my father started in the industry fresh out of college, I had already experienced burnout in another career by the time I joined the marketing world — and I had taken the lessons from both my father’s prior experience and my own to heart while building a necessary sense of perspective.

Forget legacy or overarching purpose. At the end of the day, my job was simply an occupation, and it needed to stay that way.

***

I’ve since grown more comfortable with the routines of the business world — even dressing somewhat formally despite my employer’s lack of a strict dress code — but I still refuse to let my job take over my life. While I continue to work at becoming a better marketer, if I ever feel that my career is trapping me in a cycle of misery — as my father did — I will follow his lead (and my precedent) and start anew.

For there’s one lesson my father taught me that rings truer than the rest.

Building a career is a worthy investment. But the moments that matter the most are the ones shared while downing that glass of Ovaltine.

A Costly Definition

There are so many things that make us great. The power of our mind and the size of our heart can help make the world a better place. And our unique personality traits add a notable zest to our society, much like an extra spice in a Gumbo. Yet, despite all that makes us one-of-a-kind, one factor seems to define all of us.

Money.

Try as we may to avoid it, the amount of money we have dictates our actions and perceptions. We need money to put food on our tables, clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads. Money shapes people’s perception of where we came from, and money defines where we’re going. Sometimes we use money in sickening degrees lavish excess — filling our lives with indulgences we don’t need. Other times, we let our lack of money hold us back — our financial burden inhibiting our lifestyle.

Money has a chokehold on our society as well. Needs are met and problems are solved not for the greater good, but instead because of the money exchange involved. That feeling of surprise when we get something for free — that only serves to underscore this point.

Our glorification of those with money only fans the flames; we’re hard wired to pursue more and more of money — first for ourselves, and then for our families. And while we inherently know that money is not correlated with satisfaction, we keep pursuing it, even when we know we have enough.

It’s a damned shame.

Money is a necessary evil in a capitalist society. But there should be some necessary good as well.

Spreading happiness and goodwill — that doesn’t need to come with a price tag. Spending time with the people we care about — that shouldn’t be burdened by the weight of money. The things we create, ideas we share, hobbies we cultivate, lives we impact — they should be celebrated independent of the financial gains they might bring us.

We will still get our money. And spend it. And then spend some more. But our narrative shouldn’t be imprisoned within the confines of our bank account.

The way we live our lives and contribute to our society — independent of our wallets — is what should define us.

Let’s change the narrative.