Legacy – Should You Worry About Your Own Legacy? #64 #cong24 #legacy

Synopsis:

Your legacy isn’t really your concern because you may not be aware of the impact you have on others.

Total Words

970

Reading Time in Minutes

4

Key Takeaways:

  1. Don’t concern yourself with your legacy
  2. Focus on how you are with people and let them decide on your legacy
  3. Don’t regret the things you don’t do …
  4. Book the holiday!

About Pamela O'Brien:

Pam is a lecturer in the Technological University of the Shannon. She is also a mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend. She is not really concerned about what her legacy will be …

Contacting Pamela O'Brien:

You can connect with Pam on BlueSky or LinkedIn

By Pam O’Brien

Legacy …now there’s a loaded word! As has happened in the past with the themes for Congregation I have ruminated for many weeks over what this this means to me. This time around I keep coming back to the same thing and that is that your legacy is none of your business in much the same way that what people think of you is none of your business. So, this might be a very short blog post!

There are many definitions for legacy and the one I am choosing to place at the heart of this post is that which refers to the practices that have been handed down from the past. So, when I think of legacy, I think of the people who are no longer here and what impact they have had on me and others who knew them. So, what I really mean when I say that your legacy is none of your business, is that you may be completely unaware of the impact you have on others so focusing on your own legacy may be a little pointless. It is more important to consider how you treat people as opposed to how you will be remembered.

My dad died 30 years ago. To say that it was a traumatic event doesn’t even begin to acknowledge the huge impact that it had on my life and that of my family. He battled for almost a year before he died and watching cancer reduce him to a shadow of his former self was heartbreaking. My dad was a strong, independent, hardworking man who spent the last few weeks of his life unable to really move himself in the bed or even feed himself. He was 50. I can’t imagine being in his situation and yet he accepted it for what it was and allowed us, his family, to see the best of him in his last months and weeks. So the legacy from my dad is to live your life and do the things you want to do. It is often said, that you will regret the things you don’t do more than the things you do, so I have made it my mission to do the things I want to do while I can …

But that isn’t his only legacy. Dad was hardworking, family focused and a good friend to so many people and all of these things have been mentioned many times in the years since he died. I would like to think that these are the qualities that I and my brothers and sisters have continued on from both my parents.

My grandparents lived in the same village as I did for all my childhood years. I saw these grandparents almost every day of my young life and I am so grateful for that. Their legacy for me was a really strong focus on family. This was very evident a few years back when I attended my cousins wedding. Many of my cousins were also at the wedding and we all had a fantastic weekend catching up and having the craic just like we did over the years in my grandparents’ house. This focus on family prompted me to move closer to my family from Dublin when my son was 2 to ensure that he would get a chance to spend time with his family making memories and creating relationships that will sustain him, and subsequently my daughter, throughout their lives.

My mam is still alive and in writing this blog post I have been thinking about what her legacy might be, and I think it will be the focus on education that she has. She didn’t get a chance to attend secondary school like so many people born in the forties in Ireland. But she made sure that all of her children got the chances she never did. Graduation days from college for me were all about her and my dad because without them, and particularly my mam, I simply would not have been there. I am hoping that when my Doctoral graduation eventually comes around she will be there to share the celebrations with me … I just need to get a wriggle on and make the graduation happen now!

And finally, a blog post on legacy would be incomplete without mentioning Bianca Ni Ghroghain. Bianca was a teacher in the edtech community in Ireland that I had the good luck to call a friend. Those who knew her know the void she left behind when she died and yet her legacy lives on. Bianca was selfless in sharing ideas and thoughts on teaching and technology and her impact was brought back to me recently when I visited a school. The principal mentioned attending the ICT in Education conference in 2015, a conference I run for teachers, and meeting Bianca. He sent himself an email of ideas she shared which he told me he regularly returns to. I wonder how many others similarly return to ideas shared by Bianca over the more than 9 years since she died. There is a legacy!

Everyone’s Troubles are Their Own #19 #cong23 #reality

Synopsis:

The accident of our birth determines so much of the reality of our lives. This blog post will meander through my current reality before contrasting this with the reality that so many others are experiencing right now and finally concluding with the fact my reality is not the worst place to be right now!

Total Words

769

Reading Time in Minutes

3

Key Takeaways:

  1. We need to do better by others

  2. We need to do better by others

  3. WE NEED TO DO BETTER BY OTHERS

  4.  I’ll leave you to work out number 4 …

About Pam O'Brien:

Pam O Brien is a lecturer, a researcher, a PhD candidate and a CoderDojo mentor, but she is also a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister and a friend. All of these facets of her working and personal life make her who she is.

Contacting Pam O'Brien:

Pam can be contacted at Twitter  and LinkedIn.

By Pam O’Brien

It has taken me a while to figure out what approach to take with the theme for this year’s Congregation gathering. Reality seems so straight forward as a topic and yet, when you settle down to write about it, the words disappear. I often think back to the words of my grandmother who was prone to saying, “everyone’s troubles are their own”. As a child I never really understood what she meant by that phrase but now it makes sense, and it strikes me that the same applies to everyone’s reality. Right now, my reality is that life is busy. As a full-time lecturer working on research projects while also undertaking a PhD research study it’s easy to feel overwhelmed at times. I think back to when my now adult children were much younger. The reality of my life back then was a whole other level of busy, with a different set of challenges to the ones I now have.

But then I look at what is happening in the world right now and the stress and the feeling of being overwhelmed seems so trivial when I look at the reality that other people are facing. The homeless families here in Ireland living out of their car, or a hotel room if they are lucky, or something so much worse… and the reality is that nothing much changes because it’s a difficult problem to solve so we don’t really bother trying. The parents in America who send their children to school not knowing if today is the day that those children might face an ‘active shooter’ in the place where they should feel most safe … and the reality is that the right to bear arms trumps everything else so nothing much changes. The people in war torn countries who deal with the realities of war, writing their children’s names on their arms or tying string around their wrists in the hope that they might be identifiable if a bomb is dropped on where they are or the mothers and fathers splitting up families to try to increase their chances of at least some members of their families surviving … and the reality is that the other side’s right to protect themselves trumps all else, so the war rages on, while for the most part, the rest of the world sits on their hands and watches the slaughter of innocent people.

So, I look again at my reality and am thankful for it because I’m so very lucky because I don’t live in fear, I have a roof over my head, a warm comfortable bed, food on the table and the means to do most things I want to do without too much difficulty. That hasn’t always been the case. Like so many others who grew up in a large family in working class Ireland in the 70s there wasn’t much to go around. But through the sacrifices of my parents, and especially my mam, I have got opportunities that they never had. I have a good work ethic, something else that I was lucky enough to see in action from my parents, and so I have always tried to make the most of those opportunities. So, while my reality is a pretty good place to be right now despite the challenges, that is in no small part due to the accident of my birth. Had I been born in the US, Ukraine or Palestine or in so many other places, or indeed into a different family, my daily reality could be so different. And that for me is a very sobering thought …