YOU ARE UNIQUE TO GOD AND YOUR LOVED ONES
LEAVE A LEGACY (a digital record of your life, your experiences, your story, your photos and your hopes) TO YOUR FAMILY AND LOVED ONES
THE IMPORTANCE OF LEAVING A RECORD OF YOUR LIFE
You are unique. There is only one you and one life that has passed this way in all of history. Leaving behind a record, a digital record, of your life your beliefs, your journeys, and your shared thoughts, can bless and change your loved ones awareness.
On a personal note, I remember when my father passed away. I diligently searched for any information, or any insight as to the man that he was. I only knew him as my father not as the person he was. He didn't leave much behind, only my personal memories. I searched everywhere, called my sister and asked her to help bring to remembrance several memories. And this became extremely important to me, because I was trying to build some continuity and history in my own life. But after a long search, there was nothing. Not much in the way of photos not much in the way of written excerpts, not much in the way of additional memories. How sad. Had he known how simple it was to leave behind a record, digital information, that would withstand the test of time, it could have enriched my life.
This I believe shows the importance of leaving behind a digital record of our lives to our loved ones. As proof of the concept, anything that is written and recorded becomes part of History and stays for thousands of years. The most prominent example of this, is the writings on the pyramids in Egypt, or even the Bible scriptures themselves. All of these things have longevity and continue to bless others because they were RECORDED.
***My Hope is that you will understand the importance of recording your unique life and your unique experiences to share with your loved ones.
Let me show you how easy that is:
THE PROCESS
WHAT TO DECIDE
RECORDING
1. Your first thing to decide is what to save as a legacy. Will it be photos only? Will it include music or writings or even talks that you want to share? Deciding the media that you want to share your legacy and your life is up to you. Whatever is easier or whatever is available or whatever is creative, is your choice.
2. The next thing to decide is how you will record it. What is best, easiest and long-term is to record your legacy in a digital format. This means you can use several devices to help you lay down the information you which to save. You can use a laptop, computer or you can use a tablet, but what I would suggest is to use a device that iis already at your fingertips...YOUR PHONE. The phone has applications for recording voice or taking photos, for writing or for just sharing information in any media format. So actually, in one pocket-sized place you have everything you need to both record and share any information about you and your life.
3. The next thing to determine, is who will be notified that you are in the process of doing a legacy and that you have completed your legacy. You'll want to select someone that can distribute the information to others. They will need to know the location and how to get ahold of the information. So you will want to tell your contact person the location of the information and when you would like it to be shared with others.
4. Finally you will need to decide how to take your short-term information and digital recordings and turn them into long-term places of storage. The below paragraphs will give you methods for saving this information into extremely long-term storage so that no matter how long it takes, the information will stay safe and complete.
THE METHODS
WHAT TO DO
STORING YOUR INFO
1. There are several companies that will compile your information to preserve your legacy for you, if you're willing to pay money for the service. You can look these up on Google but a few are listed below:
StoryFile Life, Circa Legacy, StoryWorth, Legacybox, iMemiries, Story Terrace, A Life Untold...and many others. Some companies will even do the work for you of collection and presentation to record your legacy. Many more can be found on the internet.
2. You can also choose to store your legacy information on large media websites. For example, Facebook allows you to choose a legacy contact person that can distribute your Facebook information photos and files should you pass. Here's a little information on that:
Open your settings. Choose Security and then Legacy Contact at the bottom of the page. After choosing your legacy contact, you'll have the option to send a message to that person. You may give your legacy contact permission to download an archive of the posts, photos and profile info you've shared on Facebook.
Ancestry.com does more than just DNA testing. It also provides a platform to save all of your photos of your family and personal information. You can give access to whomever you wish to this information.
3. You can also choose to save all your information in digital format and send it on email to various family members or friends and ask them to save the information in a personal file. You can choose to print the emails or save them on a recording media such as a flash or thumb drive.
4. You can save all of the information that you have on your phone in a file or several files and download it using your phone and a USB flash drive. This is probably the quickest, cheapest and easiest way to save information. You can pick up a high density memory stick or flash drive for a phone for under $20. This means with a little editing and planning you can both record and save your information on your phone, then download any and all files of voice recordings, photos, or writing, on to the $20 thumb drive. This is not only very inexpensive but quick and easy to do. This is what I personally have done. Then, I just make copies and save them on separate flash drives for each one of my children. So everybody gets one and I can even customize it for each child.
5. Once you have all of this information collected on files and digitized it, you can then swap out the storage media between flash drive and CD data disc or other media storage devices. Digital recording and storage is incredible because there are so many options.
FINALLY... I hope that this EStudy has helped create ideas on how simple or even complex the process of creating and storing a legacy of your life, memories and precious moments to share with those you love.
**" Again I'd like to point out... There is only one you. You are one of a kind.. The life you have lived that God has given you will never happen again in all of history. It is worth leaving behind the story, and the beautiful hopes and dreams of your life to others. You might even say that just like those in the Old testament, it is imperative that we share our relationship in God wth others. God Bless. Robert
