The American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “…The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.”
Your life story, if it is written, would be your gift to your family, now and for future generations.
Although writing your story or having it written is done to preserve your story for your family, you will no doubt enjoy reminiscing and storytelling. As I tell our clients, “How often do you get an opportunity for someone to listen to you tell your entire life story?” As biographers, it’s what we do.
Whether you write or we write for you, you have much to share.
You would write about childhood, work, family, friendships, relationships, marriage, children, religion, philanthropy, hobbies, events, etc. You would write about places – where you lived, where you grew up, specific homes, schools, colleges, workplaces, travels, etc.
You would also write about the ups and downs of life, including personal tragedies and triumphs, and the feelings and emotions connected with those.
Truly, it will be a gift that is “a portion of thyself.”
Stories Keep Us Connected
It doesn’t matter if you are famous or if you consider yourself to be an ordinary person. Your story is important. Most of our clients tell us they would have liked to have read their parents’ story or grandparents’ story. But most didn’t write it or have it written. Your children, grandchildren and future generations will want to read your story.
It was also Emerson who said, “All history becomes subjective; in other words, there is properly no history, only biography.”
When we read about history or talk about it, we are, in essence, referring to people and their lives, their stories, their biography.
Whether they wrote or recorded their stories, memories, remembrances and recollections in diaries, journals, letters, booklets or books, they provide rich – and subjective – details about their lives in the context of their surroundings and society. Today, you would do the same when writing your life story or a memoir. It is your personal history.
Family is the Reason
While there are several reasons for writing your life story or having it written, the best reason is for the benefit of your family, as a gift to your family. That is also the reason for writing the story of other family members.
Now, and in future generations, your family will appreciate your foresight. So too will others in your community – if you choose to make your story available to them either by providing copies of your book to friends or to libraries and historical societies. A life story usually includes information and history of places the writer has lived or worked.
So, forget the idea that the only reason you should write your life story or memoir is to sell it. The book about your life or your family’s life does not have to be sold. Its value is much greater than that.
You may believe the story has commercial potential. And perhaps it does. If so, there are relatively easy ways to get it published, unlike in the past when the only way to get a book published was to find a traditional publisher. Of course, publishing a book is only the very first tiny step in selling a book. Marketing is the key – no matter how wonderful you or others believe your story to be.
The first step, though, is for you to believe your story is worth writing for your family. Then write it or have Legacies & Memories write it.
If you think your life and your family’s stories are not interesting, just remember what Mark Twain said: “There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior, there is a drama, a comedy, and tragedy.”
