This post was written as an entry to Write Your Will Contest hosted on Channel One (Cognizant Internal Blogging Platform) and it has won runner-up.

 When one of my colleagues asked me if I thought about this contest on our internal blogging platform I told that “I never want to give anything of my own to any one of my successors”. That sounded like a pompous statement to make at that time.In retrospect I think that sounds like an important statement to make when I have a million dollars or equal local currency at my disposal but I feel even without them I consider that an equally important statement since I believe that as a race we have failed our ancestors who haven’t been the greatest of successors themselves. The process of evolution is nothing but a choice of comfort made by people who were better equipped to make them with the lesser mortals not having many options other than to follow them.

When people consider to leave behind a legacy, they are essentially trying to make an entire generation of people emulate them, regardless of their worth. It essentially burdens the successors with expectations, which sometimes seem unrealistic and sometimes are not what they actually want. So, if the point of leaving wealth to your sons and grandsons is to ensure that they behave in the exact same way as of you without a regard for what it took you to amass the wealth, then I consider the whole exercise to be futile. So, when an Ambani makes a decision not to leave anything to his family, essentially he is opening a world of possibilities, which might make his offspring a Sachin Tendulkar or a Dawood Ibrahim. Now that is something I want to see in my world.

What the idea of the end of the world gives to people like me who believe in better generations to follow is a premonition that may be our descendants do not have to inherit our idiosyncrasies. That is a dangerous as well as an intriguing prospect to ponder upon primarily because we do not have an idea what they might discover for themselves that we have not thought upon after years of our evolution. Even otherwise, the thought that there can be something worthwhile for a newer generation to pursue, which we have not thought ourselves makes us want to live in Post-Armageddon as well. I don’t think as a race we have inculcated in ourselves to give up and the hope to live to eternity is what makes us leave relics in a blind hope that someone of our own would live to see what happens to the world after we have physically left it.

All of my above rant would amount to nothing if indeed the world does not end by Dec 21 2012, which I definitely believe it would not. But the infinite possibilities it evokes in my mind and the hope of a better tomorrow albeit me not being a part of it is something that I intend to follow. If I imagine a world where I or any of my intellectually superior counterparts will not have a chance to be a part of I see a world building itself from scratch with nothing to look up to or to look down upon. If I were to be a part of that phenomenon I would be enthralled beyond explanation but if I don’t then I won’t think it is a bad thing to happen to my predecessors.

It is in this context that I said that I do not want to leave anything of myself to my next generation so as to not rob them off a future, which they have every right to explore themselves. It might appear to be a selfish decision in hindsight but if it inspires and instills a confidence that they can be well off without any backing, I would wish them to pass on the same to the next Armageddon.