Alfred Nobel's brother died, but the press got confused and ran his obituary instead. It was titled, "The Dynamite King," since he invented the explosive, and described the mass destruction dynamite had caused. Nobel was horrified. Then and there he determined to change things. In his last will and testament, he deeded his great fortune to establishing an award honoring those who work for peace and harmony in the world. The Nobel Peace Prize was the result.

We all want to leave a legacy. We carve names into granite or marble tombstones, and in tree trunks and wet concrete. We want to outlive ourselves, to be remembered well.

But there are better ways. We can determine today what our legacy will be. In fact, we must.