Brendan Kane argues that you're remembered for creating value that outlives you. He cites Zig Ziglar's idea that helping others achieve their goals leads to your own fulfillment, and William James's belief that a life's greatest use is serving something bigger than yourself.
Here's how you know you'll be forgotten. Zig Ziglar once said that you can have everything that you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want. What he's pointing out is that people who leave a mark on the world are the ones who create the most value for others. They solve problems. They build things that people need. They make life better, easier, or more meaningful for as many people as they possibly can. And the people who don't do that usually just disappear. Because if your life never creates value beyond yourself, there's nothing for the future to hold on to. The philosopher William James said, "The greatest use of a life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." And the only things that truly outlast us are the things that continue serving other people after we're gone. Ideas, institutions, work that keeps improving lives long after the person who started it is no longer here. If you stop helping people the moment you're gone, the world moves on without you and you'll be forgotten.
