Day 277 of #LiveWell2017

Tom Petty died Monday night. By Tuesday afternoon, my social media feeds were filled with tributes, memories, and snippets of his songs, videos, and stories. Every time a celebrity artist dies (and there have been too many these past few years), people always turn to their “body of work” to share and remember. The great thing about being an artist, musician, writer, creator of any kind, is that each one leaves behind a volume of work that helps us define who they were and how they left their mark on the world.

Every time a celebrity dies, I look at and listen to the works that get shared, fascinated by how each artist impacted the lives of everyday people. It makes me wonder – every single time – how will I be remembered? What is MY body of work? What have I contributed to the world? I’m not an artist or celebrity of note. I don’t have a deep and lasting “body of work” that people will mine and capture and share when I die. But that’s OK.

Even if we are not famous or artists, every one of us – you, me, the mailman, the girl down the hall at work, your next-door-neighbor – is creating a legacy, a body of work that is reflected in our everyday actions. We will be remembered for how we lived our lives each day with the people, animals, plants, and other living beings that shared the planet with us.

We will be remembered for the acts of kindness, the generosity, the love, the attention, the caring, the gratitude, and the compassion that we shared and showed and gave to the world. We don’t need to be celebrities to be remembered or honored. We need to be kind and grateful and loving and thoughtful and authentic. We need to help make our little corner of the world a better place.

Each day each one of us is creating our own unique “body of work” that we will leave behind when we leave this earth. We can all make a difference. We can all contribute peace, kindness, and love. We can each create goodness in the world.

What will you leave behind?