Expecting an inheritance is not something a lot of people get to look forward to.

But every parent wants to leave something behind, don’t we?

I know I do. And I think often about what my legacy will be.

In truth, most parents I know simply want their children to have it a little better than they did.

That’s not too much to ask, if you think about it.

But this extends beyond money.

I worry about what attitudes I passing on. What worldview and philosophy am I leaving an echo of? What habits?

And yes – what wealth?

I was a townie and my college roommates were the daughters of famous people. Their casual confusion of social class with accomplishment, their inane preppie-Marxism, their pretense of risk by taking obscure graduate seminars, their general filth—I understood things then. Somehow I became confused in the ensuing years, and by the time I was thirty, I was living as if I were expecting an inheritance.

-Sarah Manguso, 300 Arguments (Amazon)