Goals that end with your death are bounded by a relatively short timeline. They also tend to be bounded in ambition and in the kind of sacrifice they can motivate. When the goal extends past your own life, it changes the calculus of every decision made in service of it. Planting trees whose shade you will not sit in is not selfless. It is a different relationship with time. The people who build the most durable things tend to be playing a game whose finish line they know they will not see.