Late last year legendary boxer Mike Tyson, 58, attempted a comeback in the ring in an overblown Netflix spectacle against comparative newcomer Jake Paul, who is less than half Tyson’s age. The snoozer of a bout ended with Paul winning by judges’ decision. As if that weren’t enough of a whimper to bring Tyson’s career to a close, a dark pall descended upon his legacy for another reason.

In one of his pre-fight interviews, Tyson chatted a few minutes with bubbly, 14-year-old social media star Jazlyn Guerra. “In your return to the ring for this fight, you are setting a monumental opportunity for kids my age to see the legend Mike Tyson in the ring for the first time,” she said. “After such a successful career, what type of legacy would you like to leave behind when it’s all said and done?”

The predictable response would have been something along the lines of, “I want people to remember me as the greatest fighter of all time,” or “I want to be remembered as a man who gave everything I had to this sport, and who got a lot in return.” But Tyson seemed to forget he was talking to a 14-year-old as he unloaded an eyebrow-raising, nihilistic, profane rant.

“I don’t believe in the word legacy. I just think that’s another word for ego,” he growled.

Legacy doesn’t mean nothing. That’s just some word everybody grabbed onto. Somebody said that word and everyone grabbed on to that word, and now it’s used every five seconds. It means absolutely nothing to me. I’m just passing through. I’m gonna die, and it’s gonna be over. Who cares about legacy after that?

Oh. Okay, then.

“What a big ego,” he continued. “So, I’m gonna die, I want people to think I’m this, I’m great? No, we’re nothing. We’re just dead. We’re dust. We’re absolutely nothing. Our legacy is nothing,” he trailed off.

To her credit, the collected teen salvaged the moment and responded, “Well thank you so much for sharing that. That is something that I have not heard before, someone say that as an answer.”

But Tyson wasn’t done. “Can you really imagine somebody saying, ‘I want my legacy to be this way when I’ — You’re dead. You think someone really wants to think about you? The audacity: ‘I want people to think about me when I’m gone.’ Who the f*** cares about me when I’m gone? My kids maybe, my grandkids. Who the f*** cares?”

Guerra wrapped things up professionally, but it was a stunning interaction. Many people on social media later commended Tyson for dropping a “truth bomb.” Some seemed to think it was hilarious.

But I was saddened because Tyson’s response revealed a man whose belief system seems to allow for nothing beyond the material world, a man who apparently thinks our short time on earth is ultimately meaningless, and that the idea of leaving a lasting mark is pure arrogance. Tyson converted from Christianity to Islam in 1992; I don’t know if that had anything to do with his response, but he is tragically wrong if he thinks that when we turn to dust, the impact of our life disintegrates as well.

Tyson is right that ego-driven people may strive for the wrong kind of legacy. Ancient Roman emperors, for example, commissioned massive statues of themselves to honor their own semi-divinity. Last year Roman authorities unveiled a 42.6-foot replica of the statue known as the “Colossus of Constantine” which the emperor who paved the way for the Christianization of the empire had constructed to memorialize his legacy. I am reminded of the sobering wisdom of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias,” in which the fallen statue of an ancient “King of Kings” lies in silent testament to the impermanence of fame:

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Fame is a distorted lens through which to view a meaningful legacy. Yes, great achievements are one way of leaving your mark on the world, but all too often ambition is solely about ego and competition. The historian Plutarch, for example, records that Julius Caesar burst into tears over the realization that at his age, Alexander the Great had already become “king of so many peoples” while Caesar had “as yet achieved no brilliant success.”

Most of us will not die as accomplished as Julius Caesar or Mike Tyson, but all of us are going to be remembered, for better or worse, at least by the people whose lives we touched over our lifetime, many of whom we may not even realize we have impacted. Contrary to Tyson’s angry cynicism, your life and death matter, and your legacy will not be nothing – but it will be what you make it. So it’s vital that you decide what you want that legacy to be and then live accordingly. Your vision of that is no doubt different from my own, but I can suggest a basic template to consider.

Be daily mindful of living in such a way that you are remembered for the right reasons. This sounds like obvious, simplistic advice, but it’s easy for all of us to let our days slip into thoughtless routine, and then those days become years and finally decades of lost opportunities and regrets. Choose to make each day purposeful.

Creating a legacy seems like a grand, daunting project, and if your goal is to become “king of so many peoples,” then it will be. But it can actually be quite simple. Build it a day at a time. Begin at home, which is where for most of us our greatest impact will be felt. Pray for wisdom and discernment. Strive to be the kind of person you would admire. Guide and shape your children in the right ways and they will carry that influence into their own adulthood; eventually it will ripple outward through their children.

Somewhere along the way, the world will change. And that is no small legacy.

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The republication of this article is made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

Image Credit: Flickr-Abelito Roldan, CC BY 2.0