One of my favourite podcasts is Shelli Varela’s The YES Effect. She’s a keen personal developer who wants to get everyone to have more faith in themselves and go all in on what they love doing (naturally, I chatted with her for the first episode of Paid to Play this year). Shelli’s concept of ANTs – automatic negative thoughts – has helped me greatly in identifying when my fear is working against me.
I was listening to one of Shelli’s episodes on the way home last night and heard her ask her guest something that grabbed my attention:
If this is you’re last day, you’re checking out, and you’re remembered for a legacy, what dos that legacy look like?
I used to think that if I left the world a happier place than it was when I came in, that’d be enough. And that’s still true. But that question got me thinking about something else, especially now that I’m looking at life through the lens of, “I am a game master.”
I want to leave this earth with the knowledge that, thanks to my introducing them to and playing though RPGs, a bunch of people who would otherwise struggle with self-worth and personal courage instead now return the gaze of bullies and with a steel in their eye born of adventure and challenge overcome, a look that says:
Do you think you can break me? Do you think you can have me simply back down? Friend, do you even know whom you are trying?
I was one of that band that braved the Raskelli wilds to explore the dungeon under the Skytooth Mountains. The ancient ruin was riddled with traps and monsters, yet we emerged, bloodied but with a map to its interior and fresh knowledge of Those Who Came Before for our employers at the Collegium, who paid a hefty sum in reward.
As bard to the delegation of Mithrea, I sang the song that calmed the fury of the Tarronites and brought them back to the treaty table, ending the War before it began.
When the Orks descended on Sempris-IV, I stood shoulderplate to shoulerplate with my fellow Space Marines as we broke through the Ork lines under artillery fire and took the head of their Warboss.
When the Imperial Fourteenth Fleet blockaded the Altiri System, it was my crew and I that smuggled the former Jedi Rion Farry off planet so that she could pass critical intelligence to the Rebel Alliance.
And when Dolgorth, Destroyer of the Five Cities, came to lay siege to Brewer’s Refrain, I bought time for my friends to rally the Guard to our home’s defence with my very life. It took no less than Dolgorth himself to bring me down, but not before I made him pay with his shield-arm. And with my last breath, I cursed his name.
Bring your worst. I’m more than ready.
If I can give just one person that gift of self esteem, my job on this Earth is done.
Featured Image: Iaondrin, the elf adventurer by MatesLaurentiu