The Why
There are four reasons why you should write a letter to your grandchildren about your life. First is to help people you love. Second is the writing of it is in itself a clear demonstration of love. Third is that humankind only advances on the shoulders of a previous that wrote down what they learned. Fourth is an added bonus of helping yourself by providing meaning to your own life.
When you take the time and do the work of writing your life story you help people that you love. You give them a great gift. You give them the story and the wisdom of your life. They will learn from you and apply it to their own life. They will be a better person because they didn’t have to make all the mistakes themselves, they can avoid some of those mistakes because they learned the lessons of your life’s story. They will be inspired by your successes. Reading about how you made it through tough times will help them get through tough times.
The very fact that you took the time and did the work to write a life story letter is in itself a very clear expression of love. They will receive a gift that proves they are worthy of love. This letter means that someone really cares about them. It means that they are special. They are part of a family that cares and love each other.
“Good, better, best. Never let it rest until good is better and better is best.”
If you took away the ability for one generation to pass on its learnings to the next generation then every generation would have to start over from scratch. They would need to learn again from the beginning about algebra, physics, biology, medicine, and every other science. Take away books and we would have to learn the hard way the lessons taught by Shakespeare, Homer, Dickens, Milton, Voltaire, Blake, Austin and so many others. Humankind progresses by standing on the shoulders of previous generations. Only because previous generations wrote things down do we have cars, refrigerators, smart phones and satellites.
When you write down your life story, you allow your grandchildren to stand on your shoulders. You teach them very valuable lessons about life. When you don’t write anything down and don’t pass on your learnings, they have to start from scratch.
There is an added bonus to helping future generations – you are also helping yourself. You do that by making sense of your own life. In writing down your life story, you put structure to it. You provide themes. You make sense of things.
Even if you were to write that your life was crazy, difficult, hard and didn’t seem to make any sense to you – that is your story. Your great, great, great grandchildren can learn from that.
The very act of writing down your life story is a revealing experience that helps you see your life from a higher perspective.