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The Most Important Thing You Can Do With Your Life Is…

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This morning’s funeral service for America’s 39th president, James Earl Carter, Jr. – Jimmy – was a deeply and deservedly reverent ceremony for a universally and deeply revered man.

Jimmy Carter’s 100 years were charmingly summed up by his grandson Jason Carter, who referenced his grandfather’s “four years in the Georgia governor’s mansion, four years in the White House, and then his other 92 years…” Five surviving presidents, countless other dignitaries, and minions of friends let out an uninhibited and loving laugh. The entire service was filled with delicious moments like that.

Jimmy Carter as President

But during his presidency, Jimmy Carter suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune hurled by those who were hell bent on portraying him as a failed president, their political expediency so short-sighted in comparison with his lifelong vision of passing along to others a world better than the one passed along to him. No other president – and then ex-president – ever did that better than Jimmy Carter.

His accomplishments as president were far greater and substantial than most people recognize or would like to admit, in service to their political expediency. Atop the list, certainly, was the Camp David Accord that bore the memorable handshake moment between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat – considered an impossibility until Jimmy Carter dug in for 13 intense days.

Beyond that, Jimmy Carter appointed more women and people of color to the bench than all 38 of his predecessors combined. By a multiple of five, if you please. He also brought an air of decency, trust, and honesty to the White House – and government overall – that we Americans badly needed in the pall of Watergate and the Nixon resignation just two years earlier. He guided and formed the Department of Education in 1979 when the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was carved up.

Jimmy Carter as Private Citizen

And then there’s the example he set – for 42 years as an ex-president – in service to others. Not lip service or the easy writing of a check to charity, but with his sleeves rolled up, hammer in hand, perched on a ladder – part of a Habitat for Humanity team building affordable housing. Or eradicating Guinea worm disease all around the globe by going, literally, all over the globe. This disease used to afflict 3,000,000 people a year; today there are 14 known cases.

It is for good reason(s) that James Earl Carter, Jr, received the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.

Leaving a Legacy

Which brings us to the subject at hand, the most important thing you can do with your life. That thing is not a prescribed accomplishment or a momentary excellence.

The most important thing you can do with your life is … something that will outlive you. That’s the lesson I’ve learned from Jimmy Carter, who, wherever he went, for 100 years, did things that will outlive him, that already are outliving him.

Something that will outlive you

It bears repetition. The most important thing you can do with your life is … something that will outlive you. And no one whom I’ve known or watched or studied has ever done that more, better, and more closely aligned to their central core than James Earl Carter, Jr.

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