Tim Rohn, a mentor to the masters, writes that there are “three important treasures to leave behind to the next generation. Your pictures, your journals, and your library.” The significance of your library to future generations is big. Jim Rohn’s description impacted me.
He writes about a library saying, “this is the library that taught you, instructed you, helped you defend your ideals. It helped you develop a philosophy. It helped you become wealthy, powerful, healthy, sophisticated, and unique. Your library – the books that instructed you and fed your mind and your soul – is one of the greatest gifts you can leave behind.” I hear that and I immediately think about my legacy. Not just what books I leave behind, but the whole of me.
Legacy
“The memories or knowledge of the past or a person of the past.” Webster defines legacy as such. My words and my actions, how do they impact the future? My priorities and my loyalties for that matter, where do they stand? For example, will what I do for a living mean more to my children or will time spent with them, despite money, make a bigger difference in their lives. What memory will I leave behind?
Will the books I read about Sigmund Freud and Charles Darwin mean more than my love stories? Is he referencing my entire library or just the classics? It makes me think about what I choose to put into my mind by way of the words I decide to read.
My Libraries
One thing that I am sure of is that the significance of each of our personal libraries is great. What you read has an impact on what you believe and how you see the world. It shapes you and, in many ways, you are defined by the books you absorb. The words of this mentor to the masters cause you to take it even further. Not only are you affected by the words you bring into your mind, but they influence those that come upon your library when you are gone. They read those same books, they build their own belief system and how they view their environment but your books have been left to help that along.
Conclusion
You have importance to those that come after you. So, make sure that you leave a great legacy and include a wonderfully vast library in that which you leave behind. Through some book reviews on this blog, my hope is to share my library with all of you. Be sure to leave comments so we can discuss the books and the influences they have had on us all.