Take a look around you. There are different kinds of people walking around the globe. One wants to become rich, other wants to be famous, others don’t care about all this. In my personal opinion, they all have something in common: Everybody wants to be remembered!

How did I reach this conclusion? I looked at what different avenues in life “promise” and why people pursue them. Let’s take a look at a couple:

Wealth

Most rich people, voluntarily or not, do something to make sure people, either surrounding them or globally, know that they are rich. They help the poor, they build schools, they travel around the world in a yacht, they buy expensive goodies, and the list goes on. Most rich people ask for attention of a greater audience. Those who don’t, usually just want to touch the hearts of a select group, be it family, close friends or that single mother around the corner with 8 children.

Be it by a small group or by the whole world, all these people want to be remembered.

Fame

Fame actually holds a promise of wealth. Those who pursue fame fall in the category of people who want the attention of a wide audience. Consciously it may be about the wealth, but it’s always tainted by some form of wanting to be remembered.

Singers hope their music is remembered always. Same goes for actors, writers, bloggers, well, any celebrity. Having your name added to any Hall of Fame, or reaching the top of any chart, means that your name will be remembered for generations to come, if not forever.

Religion

All religions have a promise for the afterlife. Most have a destiny for “good people” and one for “bad people”. Some say good people go to heaven, others say they will be resurrected in a paradise on earth, others believe they will reincarnate. Bad people on the other hand are supposed to go to “hell” according to some, or die and just never come back, or reincarnate into a lesser being.

These systems encourage to do all in our power to be remembered by The One in Charge (God, Allah, Nature or whatever he/she/it is called).

Loved ones

Most people are driven by wish to be remembered by their family and friends. People get married, spend their lives together in the hope that they will have enough impact on the life of the other that they will be remembered. Parents try to give their children the best they can realize in their power in the hope that the children will appreciate them, remember them, in the end. People make friends so more people get to know them, so they can be remembered.

Someone… Anyone?

There are those in live who don’t need all the fame and attention of large masses. They sometimes don’t even need the attention of their own family. But even these people have someone in their life by whom they want to be remembered. Usually this is the closest person to them.

Conclusion

Everybody wants be remembered. I do, you do, your neighbor does… Everybody does! If you think you don’t, take a close look at your past. You will definitely recognize something you did to be remembered by.

So, in my opinion, the purpose of life is to do something to be remembered when you’re gone.