“In the end, we’ll all become stories.”

This quotation from Margaret Atwood has been in my ear, like a song you hear that you can’t stop humming. It landed in December and hasn’t gone away. 

I shared this with a friend who recently lost a parent and they remarked that “I tell stories about Mom all the time now. She’s still alive in my heart.”

I recall people who have had a big impact in the world – created things that have changed lives. They have had a real impact on others’ lives. And they are still stories.

I suspect my son’s grandchildren, if he has any, will be the last who will remember me. And that feels ok.

I don’t experience a need to be remembered, in part because I won’t be around to hear the story. My ego has come to terms with this.

What feels important right now is to make a difference in the present.

I’ve decided that what that means for me is to grow leaders and support them to thrive. (One of the stories I tell myself is that this matters.)

I find myself out of step with much of the world around me right now. I haven’t set goals for 2024. I don’t have a vision board. I don’t have a plan.

I do have a sense of purpose. I am doing my inner leadership work and that entails noticing all the ways in which I have already become a story to myself. And I am connected to my agency.

That feels like enough to set out into 2024 in good spirits and live my purpose in the world.

Note: Thank you Dad for posing in front of Niagara Falls in 1966 and having the picture taken in black and white. You’re now 79 and not done writing your story.