“History is written by the victors and framed according to the prejudices and bias existing on their side.” — George Graham Vest

History writes itself as humans progress generation-to-generation, but that’s no guarantee of it being remembered. For, as Vest, a Confederate Senator who managed to retain power after the American Civil War pointed out, our written history is only remembered when subsequent generations choose to remember it. How many billions of souls are nothing more than a footprint? How many heroic figures would have been portrayed as villains had the other side won?

The point was hammered home for me on a visit to the Colosseum in Rome. The Colosseum affirms history—for who doesn’t know of the Colosseum?—while also emphasizing that remembering or saving anything from one generation is at the mercy of those who follow in the next. Whole sections of the Colosseum were removed and recycled into other things, which themselves may have been removed and recycled again and again. Were it not deemed sacred the Colosseum likely would have disappeared like the statue Colossus, from which it got its name, did.

Most Emperors, Presidents and Popes fall away into history, let alone you and me. The lesson is to enjoy the ride while we’re here, but also to be so valued by those we leave behind that we’re remembered for all the right reasons. Ultimately, our lives are fragile enough as it is without the burden of being remembered beyond a generation or two after we’re gone, so we ought to simply pursue excellence for its own sake. Our time is not some dusty monument, we write our memories now. The rest is up to those who follow.