Becoming a Good Ancestor

I will ask you to do something for me. Close your eyes and imagine your family tree behind you. Your father behind your right shoulder. Your mother behind your left shoulder. Their parents behind them and their grandparents behind their parents. Keep going. Imagine the three generations, five generations, seven generations behind you. How does it feel? Now imagine that you can turn around and look at them. And it's okay if you don't know their faces. Just imagine. There are about 127 of your direct ancestors that you're looking at now, stretching across 140 years. Look at all these life stories. And imagine that all of these life stories still resonate in your own life today. In various traditions around the world including Christianity, and Native American traditions, there is a belief that one's actions impact the next seven generations. And we can see it both globally and on a personal level. What was happening 140 years ago, still has its impact into how we are now. The industrial revolution, scientific growth, psychology, our understanding of humans. All of this is still unfolding. The great migration that happened in the last 140 years, created this world that we're in now, people changing countries, creating families, going into war, creating more families. All of this means that you can be here today. Now imagine turning back to face your own life. And the next generation coming after you. Whether your own children or the children of your siblings, your relatives, the generation that comes after. And then their children. And then, the children of their children. And then the fourth generation and the fifth and the sixth generation of the descendants and the seventh generation. This is how far your current life is going to ripple out to. All these future generations will turn back to look at you as their ancestor. What kind of ancestor are you going to become?