Will
A fictional short-short story
I was so careful in creating my will. I concluded that my son should get little. Not only would he fritter the money, he’s rather a miscreant. Certainly, my choice would yield far more benefit. I left most of my $5,000,000 to a top university’s lab conducting research on the biological basis of higher-order cognition. After all, if we can learn how to ethically boost brainpower, we all benefit. Yet that’s a tough-to-fund area because of political concerns (that in truth could be ethically addressed) and because practical application is decades away.
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Well, it’s been six years after I died, and I’m looking at you from the afterworld. My son sued to overturn my will, claiming I wasn’t compos mentis when writing it. Fortunately, the university’s lawyer tore him to shreds. But after a few years, the university succumbed to mission creep. Because such research remained hard to fund, my dollars wouldn’t get wisely used — much more money would be required. So they used my money to fund research on autism, not bad, but there, my money was a drop in the ocean — Government, drug companies, and nonprofits give billions to try to prevent and cure autism. But such is life.
Takeaway: Write your will not just air-tight and where your legacy will do the most good, but in an area that is less subject to mission creep.
I read this aloud on YouTube.
Marty Nemko is a career and personal coach and author of 36 books including How to Do Life, A Dose of Reality, and Senior Stories. You can reach him at mnemko@gmail.com
