Hamilton came out this weekend on Disney+ and every theatre kid in America rejoiced! Hamilton is about the founding fathers of America through a non-white cast. It’s one of the few musicals that rap so everyone can get into it.

The main thing that I got from Hamilton was his desire to leave a legacy. We all want to leave our mark on the world, but Hamilton seemed desperate to leave his mark no matter what the cost. Spoiler alert through his constant drive to write various political essays, talk of funding the national debt and to assume state debts and make other huge changes to our nation he lost his wife and son as a consequence of his own selfish choices.

The question I pose is how do you leave a legacy, without harming others in the process?

Some of the most powerful people in our history have betrayed and stepped on other people to get where they are. Think about Facebook for example. Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea from three fellow students he went to Harvard with and they later sued him and won. (To the tune of 65 million dollars). People still respect Facebook and Zuckerberg is worth over 80 billion dollars. He was also called into court when Facebook was involved in the misuse of information during the political election. Currently, he is the sixth richest man in the world according to the New York Post and he is suing Native Hawaiians so he can build a mansion.

Jeff Bezos who is worth more than 166 billion dollars can’t seem to pay his Amazon employees better and it took strikes for him to provide them with the proper safety gear during the pandemic. Bezos made it a point to undercut his third-party sellers by using their data to find the best-selling products. Then Amazon would take this knowledge to buy/produce the products for cheaper forcing the third part sellers out of business.

Now I know there are great people out there who genuinely want to help others, for example, nurses and doctors doing the best they can to help people through this awful virus. The fitness trainers who are helping people lose weight the right way to gain back their health and strength through virtual training. These people are all leaving a legacy, but not at the level Hamilton was aiming for. He was thinking about a global scale like Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Stan Lee, or Prince. People who have been mourned worldwide. People whose contributions to society have helped propel us forward made us stronger, made us feel less alone in this big world.

Three people that left a legacy without harming others are Jesus, Nikola Tesla, and Stephen Hawking. Now I know that’s not a sentence you expected to read but hear me out. Throughout the teachings of the Bible, we hear various stories of Jesus healing others, loving people who were outcast, providing food for the masses, and even teaching others to walk by faith. The people who hated him and persecuted him felt threatened by his popularity and ability to heal others. He was a rebel in his time, but he did not harm other people. Nikola Tesla, who created the first AC motor, created meters, electrical oscillators, improved lights, made the Tesla coils and various other patented projects. He was a brilliant man and contributed greatly to our society while sadly running out of money before finishing his work. Stephen Hawking, who contributed to our knowledge of physics and black holes. He pushed the boundaries of theoretical physics and did not let his disease slow down his contributions to the physics world.

Have you seen Hamilton? Can you think of people who have left a positive legacy?