Recording your memories, values, and lessons learned in an Ethical Will is a time-honored, precious way to share your authentic self with others.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
In the 4th century BCE, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote these words spoken by his teacher, Socrates, in a work called “The Apology.” In it, the 70-year-old Socrates, having been condemned to death by Athenian officials for corrupting the city’s youth with his philosophy, justifies his beliefs and values and his decision to share them with others as a teacher. In short, he was leaving a legacy by making a public statement about his authentic self.
Socrates’ lofty impulse is actually one that many of us can relate to as we age. More often we may find ourselves reflecting on our own lives, the choices we’ve made, and the lessons we’ve learned––and wanting to share them with our family and others we love in the hope that they might benefit from our insights.
One way we can do this is through the creation of an Ethical Will (EW). While not a legal document requiring witnesses or notarization, an EW can be as powerful and meaningful as a Last Will and Testament in clarifying our wishes for others’ lives.
A Centuries-Old Tradition
The concept of an EW goes back centuries and spans civilizations. The Ancient Greek tradition of writing an Apology, or explanation, of one’s life was later adopted by the Romans and continued throughout Medieval Europe. At the same time, Islamic culture promoted the idea of the Spiritual Will to record personal principles for determining how best to disperse one’s money for charitable purposes. In modern times in Japan, with the rise of a very large elder population, some older adults are writing “ending notes” as a way of leaving a moral legacy for their descendants.
The most notable and sustained EW tradition can be found among the Jewish culture of speaking to one’s children or writing them Legacy Letters detailing the best way to live a life. Such examples are found in the Hebrew Bible and throughout Jewish literature.
What all these traditions have in common is the impulse for self-examination and self-evaluation of one’s experiences for the ultimate benefit of others.
Some Elements of an EW
What ideas might you include in this precious document? The answer: Anything that you hold dear.
For example, you can describe your memories, secrets, regrets, funny stories, accomplishments, and mistakes. You can offer to others advice, encouragement, acceptance, and forgiveness. You can summarize your core beliefs, express your gratitude, and challenge others to achieve their potential.
To accommodate such a variety of possibilities, an EW can take many forms and include such elements as lists, drawings, photos, and even scrapbook mementos. Moreover, it doesn’t even have to be a written document but can be audio- or videotaped.
And, most important of all, legacy writing needn’t be shared only after its creator is gone—it can be handed down right now.
The “Forever Letter”
That last point is the focus of the work of Rabbi Elana Zaiman, author of The Forever Letter: Writing What We Believe for Those We Love. She describes this form of Jewish Legacy Letter as one “that is meant to deepen, heal, or uplift our relationships.”
What makes her approach so original is that a Forever Letter (FL) doesn’t limit the interaction being strictly generational but rather can be intergenerational.
As Zaiman explains, it’s “a letter anyone can write to anyone. Parents to children. Children to parents. Grandparents to grandchildren. Grandchildren to grandparents. Mentees to their mentors. Mentors to their mentees. Students to their teachers and teachers to students. Siblings and spouses to one another.”
Because an FL’s nature is fluid, its value lies in acknowledging the present moment rather than some future, post-mortem discovery.
“A Forever Letter is meant to be shared now,” Zaiman says. “Anyone can write an FL at any time, for any occasion and for no occasion…. [It] is about connecting deeply with the people we love more than it is about passing on what we deem we need to pass on.
“It’s important to say what we want to say before it is too late,” Zaiman continues. “No matter how old or young we are. It’s not just an elder that can die suddenly. It is any of us. And why wait to share how we feel about the people we love and care about? Why wait to repair what is broken? We must act now. We never know how much time we have.”
Imagine surprising a recipient with your Ethical Will, Legacy Letter, or Forever Letter. Or choosing to share it on an important occasion such as a birthday, graduation, or wedding and creating a ritual around presenting or reading it. The act itself can emotionally impact everyone involved.
“Why not be in the relationship now?” Zaiman asks. “Why leave important words that we want to share for after we die?”
That being said, she believes that we needn’t be intimidated and stymied at the thought of such important personal sharing.
“I encourage people to be themselves,” she says. “To not expect themselves to be Shakespeare. To write the way they write, in their own voices. To talk about themselves, the person they are writing to, and their relationship with the person they are writing to, to be honest and real and present.”
Some Important Caveats
No matter what language we use, Zaiman cautions us to think not only about what we share but also about our motivations for doing so.
“We must be careful as we write legacy letters. To not command from the grave. And to not write a letter essentially asking that others live the lives we never did. We must remember that the people we are writing to are their own people with their own lives and interests and they must live their own lives, not the lives we had hoped to live and never succeeded at living, not even the lives we succeeded at living.”
Living Your Legacy, Too
There’s one additional value in recording your moral legacy, and in a way it can be the most important one of all. As Zaiman puts it, the act can be “a transformational experience, taking us to our ultimate truth, our authentic self.”
In other words, this formal process of reviewing and explaining our lives can be the catalyst for revealing who we have been and who we are, not only to others but also to ourselves. And this revelation can inspire us to make some changes in the goals we pursue and the ways in which we spend our time pursuing them.
In other words, as Socrates might agree, the examined life is worth living—and sharing.
[Sidebar] Want to Get Started?
Consider answering these questions:
What was the most wonderful moment in your life?
What was your most difficult moment and how did you deal with it?
Who has/have been your greatest teacher(s)?
What quality do you most value in a relationship?
How would you describe “meaningful work”?
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned so far?
What would you want to be remembered for?
Jeanette Leardi is a Portland-based social gerontologist, community educator, and author of Aging Sideways: Changing Our Perspectives on Getting Older. She promotes older adult empowerment through her popular presentations and workshops in journaling, memoir writing, ethical will creation, brain fitness, creativity, ageism, intergenerational communication, and caregiver support to people of all ages. Learn more about her work on her website.