The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

November 14On Immortality

Would I could die today that this aching sense of immortality might be satisfied or cease to ache. The difficulty remains the same when I struggle with the extension of never never never—just as I repeated the exercise in childhood; can't form an idea, can't stretch myself to that which has no end … It is this impossibility of losing oneself, though ages pass over the change, that argues immortality.

Mary Moody Emerson—The Selected Letters of Mary Moody Emerson (1774–1863)

For a little family history context, Mary Moody Emerson was Ralph Waldo Emerson's aunt and earliest teacher.

Currently, biological immortality is still just a major plot element in Indiana Jones–type movies or maybe a goal of the anti-aging research being done by Google.

There is, however, an element of immortality in the work done by many entrepreneurs—at least in the sense that their work, innovations, and contributions lend to the lives of others long after they are gone (planned or unplanned).

Books, for example, are often said to be a path to an author's immortality. (Some it might make utterly forgettable.)

In nature, a forest lives in immortality through regeneration of old growth and new growth from events such as fires.

So today's thought is this somewhat theoretical question: do you (should you) consider the long-term impact of your work as part of your plan? Would that change any element of your work? Would you ultimately have more impact if you intended to? Is that ...