When I was in high school, my senior English teacher considered me a terrible writer, and I believed her. It’s not that I didn’t try. I labored over my essays more than anyone. They were dripping with sweat and tears. That was the problem. I was trying too hard. I was trying to write the way my teacher Paula Eyrich wrote, full of semi-colons and “generative sentences,” and it wasn’t me.
I remember Eyrich (that’s what we called her) announcing one day to the class: “Blum (that’s what she called me) spends hours writing a paper, and it’s no where near as good as what Jan Orr scribbles down in ten minutes during homeroom.” I should’ve started writing my papers in homeroom.
Eyrich also announced: “Blum will go to the University of Texas and major in business,” long before I’d decided on a college or a major. She was right. I dodged every class at UT that required any kind of literary skills. I became a numbers man. I was at home and confident in the world of debits and credits. (I still am.)
In law school, I learned the world of technical writing—legal memos and briefs. I continued that skill in my career, but I steered clear of any writing that involved creativity. I wrote 100% from the head, zero from the heart.
That was the case all the way up to 2020. Then the COVID pandemic hit and turned our world upside down. Holed up all day in my bedroom with my computer, I got a wild idea one day to start this blog. The Blum Firm was approaching our 40th anniversary, and my way of celebrating it was to start a weekly Family Legacy Planning series. The plan was to impart some estate planning tips for a number of weeks, until I ran out of juice. At that point I would stop.
Then, the unexpected happened. I began to leak more and more of my heart into my weekly posts. It really took root in my post of March 15, 2022, “I Am Ukrainian.” I started sharing more about my own family heritage and my four grandparents’ miraculous escape from Hitler. The reaction floored me. People wanted more “Marvin” in my planning tips. I still focused on how to build a lasting legacy, but the posts were heavily infused with my personal stories.
I went full-force personal in my five-part series on our family’s trip to Israel at the time of the October 7 attack, starting with my post of October 10, 2023. I really took it to the limit of personal when I revealed my daughter’s struggle with alcoholism in my post of August 1, 2023, “Lizzy’s Sobriety Journey.” The feedback was so encouraging it blew my mind.
I had found my voice. I stopped dwelling over word choice and just let the words flow. I abandoned all efforts to write like Eyrich. Gone were the semi-colons and labored attempts at “generative sentences.” What you get now comes straight from the heart—my stories, my attempts at wisdom, my life lessons on how to build a legacy. In typical Marvin fashion, I’ve never missed a week—250 consecutive musings from Marvin.
Historian David McCullough affirms my discovery: “There’s no one way to write. It’s what works for you.” In History Matters (a posthumous collection of McCullough’s essays), he expands: “And yes, happiness is to be found in writing….Write to make music. Don’t just pound out notes.”
What’s the legacy lesson in my post today? Be you. Don’t let someone else define your style. Open up both your head and your heart. Build a legacy that’s true to yourself.
Mama Cass is singing in my ear right now:
“Nobody can tell you
There’s only one song worth singing
They may try and sell you
Cause it hangs them up
To see someone like you.
But you gotta make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song.
Make your own kind of music.”
Thanks to all of you for singing along with my writing throughout these 250 Family Legacy Planning posts. I’ll try to keep them coming.
Marvin E. Blum
High-school-aged Marvin Blum, then a terrible writer, would be shocked to discover that today marks his 250th post as a writer.
