I’ve a confession to make. I’ve never been great with grammar. Maybe that’s why I work primarily in video 
I’m sure some of you more keen- eyed grammarians have spotted the odd blunder or two in my posts. However, when I do write major pieces I always rely on a good editor to polish my work. For those of you who prefer to work on your own, here’s a great list…Read more.
Ethical Wills aren’t new. In fact they go back to Biblical times. But it’s within the last few decades that they’ve grown in popularity. People feel the need to leave something more than their worldly possessions. They want to convey to loved ones what they value, what has made their life meaningful, the hopes they have for their family and friends, lessons learned, and their regrets and achievements.
An excellent place to start composing your own Ethical Will is with Susan Turnbull’s The Wealth of Your Life: A Step-by-Step Guide for Creating Your Ethical Will. This is the third edition of her popular book first published in 2005.
Having designed and run numerous workshops on Ethical Wills myself, I was eager to work through Susan’s guide. To begin with it looks gorgeous. In fact it looks so good I was hesitant to begin writing in it! The 40 page guide is divided into 5 steps: imagining your audience, opening lines, reflecting and making notes, integrating your thoughts, and composing your Ethical Will.
A number of the changes in the Third Edition are cosmetic – changing fonts, redesigning the layout, and adding new visual elements. The core content, however, remains basically unchanged.
What’s new is that some of the steps have been expanded and are easier to follow. This is particularly true in Step Three: Creating Your Ethical Will which is the core of the guide. It’s divided into five themes: your feelings, your values, your perspective, your history, and your will or estate plan.
I know from experience how difficult it is to identify core values. It’s not something we’re asked to do every day. Step Three’s Your Values theme has been improved by the addition of a referral list of 82 values. To further aid readers to discover their values they’re asked to write down An activity or role that gives my life meaning and purpose. Then they’re prompted to identify The personal values that are reflected. And finally, readers are asked to consider The biggest reward of that activity/role. These prompts helped me see more clearly why some activities had meaning and purpose in my life.
I worked my way through all the sections of the guide and found that the prompts really helped me extract the juice from my life. All that remains now is to take all my notes and complete writing my Ethical Will.
It would have been helpful to include in the guide a few tips on the process of preparing an Ethical Will. We’re all different in how we like to do things but these few suggestions would give readers some guidance.
If you’re curious about Ethical Wills and looking for guidance in composing one, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of The Wealth of Your Life. Remember the words of Bertrand Russell, “One must care about a world one will not see.”
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Posted in Ethical will, How to, Tips, Writing
Tagged Ethical will, Philosophy, Religion and Spirituality, study guide, Susan Turnbull, Wills, Writers Resources, Writing
Still putting off writing your life story? Well here’s something you might want to try. Write down a list of twenty statements about yourself that would give someone in the future an idea of who you are… Read more.
Posted in How to, Personal historian, Tips, Writing
Tagged How to, Life stories, life story, lists, Personal historian, personal histories, personal history, Writers Resources, Writing
This is my third annual listing of the best personal history blogs of the year.
I’ve been tougher in my selection this year. Blogs that were either “missing in action” or were visually unappealing or had weak content didn’t make the cut.
My criteria for selection is based on the qualities I wrote about in What Everybody Ought to Know About a Successful Blog. Briefly these are:
This year there are two newcomers to the list: Beth LaMie’s One Story at a Time and Sarah White’s True Stories Well Told.
Special mention also goes to three blogs that show what good personal history blogging can be. If you’re not on this year’s list, check these out for inspiration. The owners know their audience, write great content, post frequently and consistently, and create a visually appealing format. Kudos to The Heart and Craft of Life Writing, Women’s Memoirs, and True Stories Well Told.
Without further ado, here are the top eight personal history blogs for 2011, ranked in alphabetical order. Congratulations to everyone. Drum role, please!
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Photo by Jackie
If you’re searching for a way of creating a free professional promotional video for your business, look no further. Check out My Business Story in today’s Monday’s Link Roundup. And reenacted photos in Back to the Future will forever change how you look at childhood pictures of yourself.
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In this Monday’s Link Roundup, don’t pass up Affirmation, Etched in Vinyl. It speaks passionately to why personal historians do the work they do. As someone who loves a pen in my hand, I was intrigued by Why creative writing is better with a pen. For a little blast of nostalgia, take a look at What Record Stores Looked Like in the 1960s.
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