12/31/2024
YOUR OBITUARY
Do you ever wonder what people will say about you after you are gone? Most of us will never get that chance to find out, but one person did. In 1888, Ludvig Nobel, the brother of Swedish entrepreneur Alfred Nobel, died. Many newspapers across Europe mistakenly wrote obituaries about Alfred instead. Many of them were not flattering. One French paper stated, "The merchant of death is dead.” Alfred was only 55 at the time and was shocked to see himself described as a "merchant of death.” He held 355 patents. The most famous was dynamite. He had steered his company from being a simple iron and steel producer to one of the biggest arm suppliers in Europe. The French obituary held none of its contempt for Alfred back, going on to say that "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”
As he read his own obituary, he realized that his inventions, including dynamite, were responsible for an enormous number of deaths. "Merchant of death” was pretty accurate. At that moment, Alfred decided to rewrite his legacy. Secretly, he changed his will to leave his entire fortune to a foundation that would fund five Nobel prizes - a peace prize, a literary prize, and prizes for physics, chemistry and medicine. He died just seven years later. His family was shocked to find that he had given his entire fortune away. That fortune, which is the Nobel Foundation, has over $472 million today.
Ironically, the Nobel Peace Prize recognizes those which have “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace,” and it was made possible by the man who invented dynamite and was lucky enough to read his own obituary.
If you, like Alfred, had the opportunity to read your obituary today, what would it say? Be honest with yourself. What will people remember most about your character and your accomplishments? Are these things you want to be remembered by? We will all leave a legacy, and we all have a choice about whether we will leave that legacy to chance or whether we will deliberately shape it. Make your legacy deliberate. Start it today.
Happy New Year!
David Thrasher MD
