I’m working on a series of inspirational emails for a client’s newsletter. I love this kind of work because it forces me to think positively and to look for inspiration in the world around me. It forces me to take my eyes off of the things that hurt, aggravate and irritate me in order to see the magic and wonder in the simple things around me.

That’s the point of the emails as well - to get people to see there is something to be grateful for in everything around us. I consider it God’s gift to me that I get jobs like this. While looking for photos to illustrate the newsletter I found this one and it got me to thinking about the impact I’m leaving on this world. There are two kinds of impact we leave: The public persona and the private persona.

The Public Persona:

Our public footprint is the one the media and the public shows or sees. For some of us it’s front page coverage and thousands of attendees at our funeral and then the dark humor circuits among the late night talk show comedians. Then the fame fades and other than a few references on the anniversary of our death or whatever made us so well known, our name fades into obscurity until a decade or two or three later most people have no idea who we were. Our name might end up on a building, or as the name of a baseball field. And people, even if they recognize the name, like Hitler, or even Jesus Christ, often don’t really know what the person was about. They know only the image the press has perpetuated or the stereotype. You aren’t ever really known. That feels awfully lonely to me.

Private Persona:

Then there’s the one-on-one impact. There are the lives we’ve touched, changed, inspired or comforted. An act of kindness, a bottle of cold water on a hot day, a smile, a hug, a ride to the grocery store when we don’t have a car. There’s the comfort and support, encouragement and compassion and a hand up when someone is in a deep hole they’ve dug for ourselves. There’s being there when a loved one dies, or when life gets dark. It’s the hard stuff - the learning, the day-to-day presence and encouragement. They are the hundreds of little things that mean so much, and that people remember for the rest of their lives. My high school teachers are among those. Their lessons, encouragement and laughter will be with me and part of who I am forever. It is the greatest legacy they could have left - a piece of themselves in every life they touched. Their influence continues without the media, or hype. It just is and it’s powerful.

We may not live on in infamy in the public eye, but who we are, who we were, lives on forever in the hearts of those we reach out to. Which kind of fame means more to you? Your name on a plaque on a wall at some institution, or on the front page of every website or paper your peers read? Or would you prefer your name mentioned often, in stories told round the table at Thanksgiving or Christmas, or on an anniversary or at an odd time when someone remembers something you said or taught or shared? Me? I’d rather be known and cherished by a handful of people I impacted for good rather than a footprint in the media sand.