Most men are intending a future rather than building one. You mean to earn more, keep more, write the thing down, set the people you love up properly, and you have meant to for a while. The future has to be signed, not just intended. The higher self is the version of you that other people can rely on after you are out of the room, and eventually after you are gone. Legacy is where we make that concrete.
This is not sentiment. Researchers followed more than six thousand adults for fourteen years and found that the ones who reported a clear sense of purpose died at a lower rate in every age group, younger and older alike, even after accounting for their relationships and their mood. Having somewhere to be going is part of health.
Providing is the highest practical objective you can hold, and it breaks into three parts: capability, so you can earn; reserves, so a bad year does not become a bad decade; and systems that keep working without you in the room. If you are not there yet, that is a starting point rather than a verdict. We work on making more and keeping more, in that order, and on protecting what you keep from the setbacks that are only temporary if you have planned for them.
Then it gets signed. A trust document turns an intention about the people who depend on you into something with legal weight. Men who have one report lower daily stress and better sleep than men who have been meaning to, and having done it changes how you carry yourself in ways that are hard to fake.
What men tell us afterward is that they sleep better, they stopped feeling behind, and they know exactly what happens to the people they love if something happens to them.
Hill & Turiano, Psychological Science (2014)
Related: Hunt and Survival, Community, Health