Finding your legacy

Graduation is May 11 at noon, and I have made no plans.
I am scared beyond measure and I just figured out why.
My success is inevitable.
I have always had plans. I have always known what I was going to be.
Til the death of me, I will always be a writer, but I now understand why it has become important to me to take the next year off.
I know I can have an amazing career no matter what my next step is.
I, just like you, was bred for greatness. After all, I will be a Prairie View A&M University graduate.
But, I have been thinking a lot about history, my place, and the meaning of legacy, and discovered that my greatest contribution to society won't take place between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. in an office.
Most things created in jobs are not lasting. Reputations can be defamed, new inventions are replaced by newer inventions, ideas evolve. Names of the greats are forgotten when the new greats emerge.
The only thing that is truly mine, the only thing that cannot be taken from me, the only thing guaranteed to succeed me in death will be my legacy.
That legacy was within Dorothea Tate and Jack Brown, Dorothy Morrison and Willie Lorenzo, Debra Morrison Brown and Jack Brown. That legacy now lies within me and no one can take, replace, refute, exploit, or destroy that.
So what does that have to do with graduation and my future success?
It means that I, just like you, could become easily wrapped up in a career that will not miss me, will forget me and move on as soon as I am gone.
I am strong, independent, innovative and a leader.
My success in a career is inevitable.
The continuation of my legacy is not.
From the moment I walk across that stage, every decision I make will be my own.
That is exactly what scares me.
Yes, I am nine credit hours away from receiving an expensive piece of paper, but I have just figured out what is important to me.
Knowing what I want to leave behind will help shape who I decide to be.
How does this apply to you?
You are in the same position I am.
Bred for greatness, you have to decide what is important to you. That will help you determine what is next.
Don't forget that in the excitement of graduation and finishing school, you are a piece of a legacy and it's on you to continue it.
It's not bad to take time off to reevaluate because you have the time.