Why not give yourself away? 

Pass on your experiences. If you give away your money, it’s gone. If you give away your furniture, your automobiles, your house, your cottage on the lake, they’re gone. But paradoxically, if you give away your experiences by writing them up, they’re still yours--yours more than ever, in fact--and yet you’ve given a gift to the family and community you love. 

I know many of you in all modesty would question whether anyone would want them. Some of you have tried to give this gift and it didn’t seem like anyone was very interested.  

It may be that some in your family simply aren’t introspective enough to be interested. More likely, though, age has a lot to do with it. When you were younger, did you listen when your parents tried to tell you about their experience? If you’re like me, your answer has to be, “Well, not always.”

But now you’re the one trying to do the telling, and it’s frustrating.

Here you’ve lived all these years, mounted up all this experience, some of it painful and hard fought, and you’ve extracted from them lessons more valuable than any you could learn in college! Why won’t they listen?

It’s not something we humans do very well...is it? But the fact is that we do listen when there’s something out there that we ourselves feel is worth listening to...and when we’re ready. 

Writing and self-publishing your life experiences makes it possible for them to be there when the descendant is ready to listen.

That’s the value of recording your memoirs. Happy New Year!