We Are Heroes, Villains, & NPCs
Daily Meditation 450–8/29/2023
We all become stories one day.
One day, you’ll be dead.
Someday, you’ll be long dead.
Your children and grandchildren will remember you. Maybe your friends and some of their families, even. Your great grandkids and their ilk, probably not.
And one day, you’ll be remembered as a hero. Or maybe a villain to some. To many others, you’ll be a nameless “NPC” they remember the face of but not the name — “I wonder where that guy went who came in for a Bavarian cream and medium cafe latte every Sunday after church?”
And that’s fine.
We aren’t all Nikola Tesla or Oppenheimer or Ghengis Khan or Stalin, leaving legacies. History books are already long enough without remembering all of us.
We do, however, need to meditate each day on the thought of “What story do I want to leave?”
Do you want to be remembered as a kind “hero” type who always helped?
Maybe a generous do-gooder with a quick wit and great heart?
Or, a whiny victim who always had hurt feelings or was offended on someone’s behalf?
Perhaps you want to be remembered as a serial dater, hook-er upper who never nailed the right person down because you were too proud and Narcissistic?
Now, no one probably “wants” the latter two of those! But, if we don’t tend the gardens of our reputations each day — with the “we are a story” mindset — then we may go to the grave as a womanizer, an alcoholic, a thief, or a petty drama queen.
So — your story…
What do you want to be?
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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”
