You don’t need your name on a building to achieve immortality. You don’t need an epic poem or a street named after you. You don’t need to invent anything and it doesn’t matter what church you go to.
You are already there.
From the first moment of your consciousness, your particles and wavelengths have been interacting with everyone else’s particles and wavelengths. Like the butterfly effect – you’ve changed the world already.
Who you are, what you’ve done, who you’ve interacted with, they have been uniquely shifted because of you – even if they don’t know it. Even if you’re not here anymore.
Your influence transcends time, being passed along like a pebble dropped in a pond – rippling from parent to child, from friend to friend, from person to person.
It doesn’t matter whether you know you are doing it – you’re sending particles all the time…
Your smile
Your laugh
What you said
What you did
Your helping hand
Your shoulder to cry on
Your friendship
Your attentive listening
Your love of soccer
All of it.
People you don’t even know feel your effect. People who haven’t been born will know you, even if they don’t know it’s you they’re knowing. Your energy sticks around.
They will know your positive and your negative. Wavelengths don’t discern.
(But, if you’re known for your smile, you’re probably on the right track.)
So, now that you know, what will you do with your immortality? How would you like your life to be felt through the ages?
You might still get your name on a building and you might get a street named after you, but those things don’t have the same longevity as you do.
Be the best you you can be. Your effect is going to be around for a while.
(For Jasper and his family)