The problems of our lives are the very material with which we get to sculpt our legacies.
The harder the problems, the harder the material.
And the harder the material, the longer our legacies have the potential to last.
When you only have to face “soft” problems and you don’t put much effort into shaping them—your life legacy is a wad of Play-Doh.
At the other end of the spectrum, if you opt to face “harder” problems and you work hard to shape them into something remarkable—your life legacy results in something more along the lines of a chiseled statue from marble.
Worth noting: this is not a call to make life as “hard” as possible.
Because without the proper tools, a huge block of marble is unsculptable—and that’s not a legacy worth aiming for either.
The goal is to stop complaining about the material we’ve been given and to start finding ways we can sculpt what we have into something we’re proud of.
Unfortunately, we can’t always change the material we’ve been given: life is wildly unfair in that sense.
Fortunately (especially if you’re reading this), we do have the ability to upgrade our tools and materials to make even harder, more exquisitely detailed sculptures.
Wisdom is the ultimate means for upgrading those tools and materials.
And your life’s legacy is worth an investment into the finest.