How do you want to be remembered?

Imagine waking up one morning, stumbling into the kitchen, and sitting down with a fresh cup of coffee as you begin reading the daily newspaper. As you flip through the pages of events, your eyes fall on the obituary column. What’s this? Your own name? Impossible! How can this be? You know you’re still alive, what’s going on here? Is this a joke? And what’s this they’re saying about you? You were a what? A tyrant responsible for the death of thousands of innocent people? The “Merchant of Death” who amassed a fortune discovering new ways to mutilate and maim people with his war devices?

But that is exactly what happened to a young man named Alfred in the year 1888. Actually, it was his brother, Ludwig, who had just died. But the French newspaper got the story mixed up. They thought it was Alfred who had met his demise. And thinking that the deceased was Alfred, they painted that horrifying, albeit accurate, description of his life.

If you had read such a description about yourself in the newspaper, what would you have thought? What would you have done?

Alfred was totally repulsed by his image as the “Merchant of Death” and he became obsessed with finding a way to change that image from one of death and weapons of war, to one of peace.

He must do something…and it must be something so impacting, so memorable, so meaningful, that from that day forward, when anyone, anywhere, mentioned his name, it would conjure up nothing, absolutely nothing, but an image of peace!

Did he succeed in accomplishing his purpose? You be the judge. Oh, here’s his full name Alfred Nobel and yes, what’s the only thing that name could make you think of?

So how will you be remembered? What will be said about you when you’re gone? What will you leave in your wake? And what are you doing today, and everyday, to make sure it’s something you’d be proud of?