Leave Your Mark

One of the many things we think about in life is what we stand for. What actions and words do we want to define who we are? What impact do we hope to have on the world?

In her piece for Motto, Margaux Bergen writes about what she wished her mother had taught her growing up and how those missing life lessons impacted what she stood for, not only as a mother but as a person.

"When my daughter Charlie turned 9, I started making notes in the back of an old Moleskine notebook that I thought I’d give her when she left for college," she writes. "I wanted to do a better job than my own mother had done preparing her for adult life."

Her decision to record her “reckoning with life” as a guide to her children would end up becoming her new book, Navigating Life. Her list of 10 things we all must learn to navigate—ourselves, others, life, love, children, contradiction, fear, money, regret and endings—is worth reading not once, but many, many times. Each time I read it, I am left thinking something new.

But I have always had a favorite line, and it's this: "Navigate Regret: It’s never too late: for love, for forgiveness, for a new way of seeing."

That idea so perfectly encapsulates what it means to craft a living legacy: Working toward that goal every day, doing your best now, not waiting until later. And, as is reiterated by so many of Motto’s most-read pieces, it’s impossible to do that work without others. The power of compassion toward others and toward ourselves is the power we all have to shape the future.

As Bergen writes, "Don’t save your best for tomorrow."

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