We Don’t Choose What We Inherit, Only What We Pass On

We inherit far more than we realise, and we inherit it at multiple levels.

As human beings, we inherit properties we never asked for. The instincts, the tendencies, the strengths and the weaknesses of being human come with us before we have made a single decision.

The place we live gives us another layer. We inherit what the people before us achieved there, and what they lost. The freedoms we enjoy and the wounds we carry are often the work of people we will never meet.

Then there is our community. Our family, with its money, assets, illness and habits. Our society. Our religion.

Each one hands us something. Each one shapes us before we are old enough to question it.

The good, the bad and the ugly

We inherit the good, the bad and the ugly, and this is not our choice.

Inheritance happens to us.

We do not choose the family we are born into, the country we grow up in, or the beliefs that surround us as children. We do not choose the habits we pick up by watching others, or the fears that were passed down without anyone saying a word.

Some of it is a gift. Some of it is a burden. Most of it is a mix of both, and it is rarely labelled.

What is ours to do

If inheritance happens to us, then what is left for us to do?

Perhaps it is this: to leave the world a better place for the generations that follow.

Not by controlling what they will inherit, but by protecting what matters most. The virtues of freedom, independent thought and expression. These are the things that allow the next generation to look at what they have been given and decide for themselves.

This is equally true at all levels. In our communities. In the wider world. In business.

Organisations inherit too. A new leader inherits a culture, a set of systems, old decisions and unspoken rules. A team inherits processes that nobody remembers designing. A program inherits the assumptions of the people who scoped it years ago. Much of what slows us down was never chosen by us. It was simply handed over, and accepted without question.

Inheriting unknowingly

The real risk is not what we inherit. It is what we inherit without noticing.

What we can see, we can examine. What we cannot see, we simply carry and pass on. A habit becomes a family trait. A workaround becomes a process. A belief becomes “the way things are.”

So the work is to be fully aware of what we are inheriting unknowingly, and to decide whether we actually inherit it, or give it a pass.

That decision is harder than it sounds. Some of what we were handed is tied to people we love, places we belong to and identities we value. Letting go of part of it can feel like letting go of them.

But if we never make the decision, someone else made it for us. And we will hand it on in the same way.

So what are you carrying today that you never chose?

And of everything you have inherited, what are you willing to give a pass, so that those who come after you do not have to carry it too?