We spend a lot of our lives chasing stuff.

More money, better titles, bigger houses, nicer vacations, et cetera.

And don't get me wrong, those things are great.

They matter.

They motivate us.

And you should be awfully proud of yourself if you've obtained those things.

But the older I get, the more I realize that stuff doesn't define you.

I think what defines us is the effect we have on others.

There's this quote by Michelangelo, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

He said- - Blake.

- Yeah.

- Blake, it's supposed to be Maya Angelou.

- Maya Angelou?

- Yeah, yeah, that's who said it.

Okay, all right.

Well, Todd Fother, correct me in that we're all a team here at WTVP, luckily, we look out for each other.

Maya Angelou once said, "I've learned that people will forget what you said.

People will forget what you did.

But people will never forget how you made them feel."

And I learned that about as far from Peoria as you can get.

I served in the Peace Corps once upon a time.

I lived in Madagascar, the most impoverished part of Madagascar.

I had no electricity.

I had no running water.

I lived there for two years.

Tiny little village called Mbani Sadaka.

The people there, the Antandroy people, didn't have much to offer me from a material standpoint.

But man, did they make me feel welcome.

For two years, I was included in everything they did.

They always invited me to morning coffee at my mayor's.

I had no idea what they were saying, but we'd laugh.

Yeah, we'd laugh.

I was always invited to evening hangs where everyone would sing and dance around a bonfire.

I'd get absolutely eaten alive by mosquitoes, but it was worth it.

They'd check on me often, but they also gave me space when I needed to decompress or recharge.

They welcomed me with open arms on my first day there, and they celebrated me on my last.

See, it was never scary for me to live in Africa, 12,000 miles away from my family and my friends, because of how the Antandroy people took care of me.

To that point in my life, that was the richest I had ever felt.

It had nothing to do with money either.

It had everything to do with how they made me feel and how I try to make other people feel now.

Because in the end, the stuff fades.

The numbers reset, the titles move on, but the way you make others feel, that's the part people carry with them.

That's the real legacy we all leave behind.

And that's my take.