Nothing is Sure in Life but Death and Social Media

It is time to talk about something nobody likes to talk about. No, not the sequels to the film "Meatballs." I would never talk about those. You shouldn’t either, but you do what you think is best.

We need to discuss change. No, not the rent the spiders pay to your sofa; real change. Specifically end of life change in this modern social media and internet world. A lot has changed in just my lifetime about how the world works, some things for the better, some for the worse. Change is the only consistency we can expect in this life. It is never easy.

Someday we will all be gone. We each will die. That is a fact. It is a difficult one, but one made even more obvious during these Strange Times. Yet your internet footprint and accounts will remain here with the rest of us after you have departed. Think about how many financial accounts you run electronically now. What about your social media history? Your digital correspondence? Automatic payments? I haven’t even really modernized my life and I have dozens of internet accounts and connections that will need to be dealt with. The traditional Will - which many people do not even have prepared - does not cover enough ground when it comes to your personal and professional data networks.

True, none of those things will be your problem anymore, because the dead don't have problems. The living do. After all, life is for us, the living. What are you doing to support your executor, heirs, family, and even your friends when they have to deal with what you leave behind? The problems you leave become the problems of people who did not make them. And who may not understand them, or even be aware of them!

We have all been there when someone close passes away; cleaning out a house, trying to find deeds and titles, fighting with multiple bureaucracies, and each other over what needs to happen. Not to mention trying to actually find time to process, grieve and rebuild your own world. And in this day and age, there are more problems than ever we have to figure out and cope with when it comes to death. Death has become complex beyond reason, because modern life is complex beyond reason. Your internet accounts and social media presence add to that complexity.

This is all food for thought, to consume as the reader sees fit. But there are questions to be answered if we want to help bridge the gap of our loss and our being lost. What can you do in your areas of responsibility to ease the transition for those you leave behind? Do you have a plan or and idea for what becomes of your data? Who will be your executor, and who is their backup?

My own steps might include a vault copy of my access codes, and a hard-copy inventory of my accounts and applications. Where possible, I would setup a legacy contact for sites that have such. I might create access ability to my spouse, attorney, and an additional executor for certain priority items like my main emails or my brokerage accounts. I have things I would like to see continued or preserved that I have started, so I need to bring people in on those projects or platforms.

Whatever I do, I want my loved ones to be able to proceed with the tasks of life without waiting on one of a dozen or more bureaucrats at the government or corporate end of things.

I want my wishes known before it is too late, and not just with things in meat-space, but with things in cyberspace. I am going to die, hopefully not sooner than I would like. But it could happen before you finish reading this. To not to make even minimum plans for that is beyond ignorant; it is selfish. Death is our final surprise, we don’t have to make it and more of one than it will already be.

I know that some folks are pretty alone, and that can be an obstacle when it comes to getting your affairs in order. Each person in their own situation has to find their own solutions. One of the most tyrannical myths we live under is that all problems and all solutions and all lives are monolithic in their sameness. Nothing could be further from the truth! My approach will by necessity be different than yours, and my plans and my chosen executors must effectively reflect that.

You will pass away someday. You will leave a mess. It is probably a good idea to anticipate that, eyes wide open and unafraid. Like anything, we have to do the work if we want the better outcome. When it comes to dying and what happens after for the living, you had better believe that there is a broad spectrum of outcomes!

Your legacy is a lot of things, make them come together for you and those who will come after you. You won’t care then, but they will.

--J.R.H.