Estate planning on the one hand involves protecting your assets from erosion and making sure that you have the financial resources that you need to comfortably enjoy the latter stages of your life. This is the aspect that your estate planning attorney can assist you with, but there is an extremely personal side to it as well. When you are inventorying all of your material assets and deciding who you are going to be providing for after you pass away your feeling for your loved ones will take center stage.

There is a way about things, and most people are at peace with their own mortality when their lives are winding down. What can hurt more than anything is the thought that you will no longer be there for your family. By the time you are in your twilight years you have been a parent for perhaps a half a century or more and then a grandparent. Your responsibility to your family is part of who you are, and letting go of this can be the most difficult thing of all.

This is the human condition, and people have traditionally addressed this reality at least in part through the creation of ethical wills. An ethical will is a written rendering of your innermost thoughts intended to give your loved ones a glimpse inside of your heart and mind. Ethical wills contain spiritual and moral guidance, and when your heirs gain access to this wisdom simultaneous to receiving their inheritances there is a profundity to the timing that is very powerful indeed.

Though ethical wills are intended to be instructive to the readers, writing one is also personally cathartic for the author. Some people choose to make confessions, ask forgiveness or explain some of their actions to their loved ones. An ethical will is a parting gift of self, and it is something that you may want to seriously consider including in your estate plan.

Tags: Elder Law, Estate Planning, Wills