Legacy: What Should We Leave Behind?

Jill Fallon has embarked on an very interesting business venture. Her two weblogs, Legacy Matters and The Business of Life, contain a wide variety of insightful ideas that cause us to reflect on what the lasting effects of our life on others can be after we have gone...

From Legacy Matters

Gift of a Lifetime
Focuses on the creation of an ethical will:

Many more people are realizing that there is more to leave behind than money, more of value in your life than your valuables. Now's the time to capture the stories of your parents if you haven't already...

The story of your life is not just a recital of facts and events, it's the story of your choices, turning points, values and lessons learned and hopes for the future...

An ethical will is an important part of your Personal Legacy Archives and some say its injecting heart into the estate-planning field...

The story of your life is the greatest legacy each of us can leave behind for our families, friends, and indeed anyone who happens to read it. Jill connects this idea to a formalized structure - the ethical will. What an excellent way to inject a healthy dose of humanism into the estate planning process. This is an idea that financial planners should definitely embrace.

Remembering Montaigne Through Time's Prism

Montaigne writes about anything he pleases, large or small. He writes Of Smells; Of Prayers; Of The Art of Discussion; Of Cannibals; Of Glory. On and on he goes, to speak of women, thumbs, nakedness, cripples, liars and books. These topics don't seem to have been part of a grand design -- he appears to have just sat down and written about them as he felt the urge. Montaigne considers topics at his own pace; circles around them, pokes at them, goes where his curiosity leads.

Writes about anything he pleases: I like the idea of what is sometimes referred to by writers as "freefalling." Sometimes we might get too focused, as my own weblog can be. Yet there seems to be a tendency, maybe it's just me, toward niche specialization. Not that that is wrong in itself - it has a place. But it would be of great value to have a more freeflowing style as well in which "topics don't seem to have been part of a grand design."

Simple Living, Simple Dying
A very compelling and sensible entry...

Jerry Lyons, a home funeral guide in Sonoma County says, "These are people who want to take charge and be responsible for their own family members, and to lend themselves to more privacy and intimacy," she said. "Many religious and spiritual backgrounds call for this type of home wake."

According to Lyons, the home funeral greatly helps survivors with the grieving process. "There's coherence and continuity for the family. It allows more time to visit and view the body, to say prayers, and to visit in the middle of the night," she said. "It brings death back into the cycle of life."

From The Business Of Life

Does Daydreaming Make You Happy?

Finally, through extensive questioning, he determined that the bright and happy children had only one thing in common: All of them spent noticeable amounts of time staring peacefully and wordlessly into space." -- Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers (from Creativity in Business)

The Pharmacist Who Says No To Drugs

Armon Neel believes that most patients in long term care facilities are over-medicated and he's on a crusade against it.

I can say, through personal experiences helping my mother overcome medications, that this is a much needed direction. Doctors simply do not understand the potential range of effects that multiple drug interactions can cause. Yet they continue to prescribe.

Featuring Customers In Ads

Financial advisory firms often feature customers in their ads, usually to show how close the financial advisor is to his clients and how he helps his clients achieve their dreams. In the single most disastrous ad I've ever seen, Middleoffice, a Swiss financial advisory firm is now featuring Yasser Arafat in banner advertising on Al Jazerra, the Arab TV station.