I’ve written before about the afterlife and my thoughts as an atheist on what happens after we die.  My opinion is that there is no afterlife for us, but that our legacy lives on in the things we have taught others, the ideas and thoughts we put out into the broader knowledge base of mankind.

But perhaps there is an afterlife we can consider that is more meaningful than that, even.

What if our afterlife is really the lives of our friends and families once we’re gone?  What if, instead of worrying about what happens to our souls and spirits when we’re gone, we worried about what will happen to the souls and spirits of those we leave behind?

If we thought that way, how far into the future would our concerns stretch?

Many spiritual concepts regarding the afterlife deal in terms like eternity.  We are compelled to choose carefully because our choices now impact our soul for the rest of neverending time.   So if the only afterlife we got, the only afterlife we could impact with our decisions now, is the one lived by our friends and family after our deaths, would we still think in terms of forever?

Would we only worry about our children?  Our grandchildren?  Great grandchildren?  The end of our family tree?

Or would we do what we could now to ensure that the world they live in will be the best possible world for the rest of time?