What if there really is nothing after? You close your eyes, fall off your perch and then, nothing. No more sense of self, no Valhalla, no pearly gates, or even the eternal torment of hell. What happens to your values if it turns out there is no weighing of hearts against feathers, no ledger of sins to be tallied. Being good because there is a reward at the end means the real intentions of being good are always in question.
Your legacy then is only that of how you are remembered. If there is no promised paradise beyond this mortal plane, will you have lived a full life? Were you felt to be a good person by those around you? Not based on a set of rules in a dusty book, but by the measure of those that remember you? Have words & actions endeared your fellow human being? Or has there been division, dogged critique and hurt feelings at every turn? Does it feel like it’s your ideals against the world? Have you uplifted and grown with your community? Or oppressed and stagnated those around you?
The whole is not fully the sum of it’s parts. Some parts outshine the others with their brilliance hiding small imperfections. Other parts may fester too grotesquely and in doing so cast shadows & gloom to the parts that would shine.