If you were to ask any group of people what they thought the afterlife was, you would get one of three basic answers.

1. A shiny place where all the people you loved are somehow awaiting your arrival and you get to eat ice cream every day.

2. You get reincarnated into some other living being and get a do over on earth, but you don’t remember anything of your previous life. Yet somehow psychics do.

3. There isn’t one.


In all honesty, I hope that whatever you believe happens after you die, happens.

As for me, I fall into the last group. At least as far as the common definition of afterlife is concerned. There is, however, a different form of afterlife that all people should subscribe to. That is the legacy you leave behind here on earth.

The example I use most when referring to this afterlife is Shakespeare. Here is someone that lived around 500 years ago and we still talk about him. That is an afterlife.

For most, their names will be lost in the ether a couple of generations after they die. Their legacy is the family they left behind and the knowledge of who they were wont last beyond their great grandchildren. As long as they lived a happy life with no regrets, there is nothing wrong with that.

Those who do have the longest of afterlives however tend to be the innovators, the inventors, creators, risk takers. These are the authors, artists, musicians, entertainers, scientists, revolutionaries. Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, The Beatles, Martin Luther King Jr.

Those are the names that will still be mentioned centuries from now. It’s what we should all strive for. And if you were to look at what they all have in common; They bettered the world. They enriched humanity’s culture. They pushed the boundaries of our knowledge. They incited cultural change.

So what will you do? What legacy will you leave behind? What will be your afterlife?

To paraphrase a quote that has been said many times, most notably recently by Banksy, “We all die twice. The first time when your physical body passes. The second when someone utters your name for the last time.”

We should all strive to only die once.