The first time I saw this book was years ago. I came across it at an airport shop. It was an intriguing title. I carried the book around the shop while I continued browsing, picking up snacks for the long journey home. In the end, I put it back on the stacks.
I think I just wasn’t ready to read it.
I came across it again recently. I can’t remember if it was a giveaway from a friend or for sale at some ridiculous price. I didn’t read it right away. I’m not even sure how long I had it before I opened it.
I am now more than halfway through, having started it in my bath a couple of nights ago. The Last Lecture is usually given by professors who ponder what they would say at the end of their lives. For Randy Pausch it would really be a last lecture, having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had then spread to his liver. Dr Pausch did pass away July 25 2008 (here is the dedication from the university).
The book itself is not the lecture he gave at Carnegie Mellon on September 18 2007. It is really his journey leading to that moment, dealing with his mortality and legacy.
Everyone should listen to his lecture and read the book The Last Lecture. He is a great storyteller. He’s funny. And I learned a lot, about Disney, NASA, ETC (Entertainment Technology Centre that he and drama professor Don Marinelli together set up), etc and picked up many nuggets of wisdom (the brick wall, which is there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough) and fundamentals that he said he got from his father and mentors like Coach Graham. A lesson that stuck with him is that it is a bad place to be when no one tells you when you screw up. That’s when people don’t care. I guess I have a whole bunch of people who care about me. This is also what my parents always say as well. Somehow it sounds different, not coming from your parents.
So if someone is riding you, remember, it’s because they see potential and they care. Thanks mom and dad.
Dr Pausch named his journeys lecture “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. He didn’t want to talk about death or dying or cancer. It makes sense. This lecture is also a way for his very young kids to know their dad a bit and what a great message from a dad – 1) to have dreams and 2) to go for it.
We forget how important dreams are and far too often we forget our innocence, imagination, and our wide-eyed fantasies. His lecture is not only about achieving dreams; it’s about how to live life.
Reading this book also got me thinking about what I would say as my own Last Lecture. If I could write my own eulogy, what would I say? I feel this is a great exercise of self-love and self-acknowledgement for everyone. We have had so many moments, all leading up to this point in our lives, that we may have forgotten or discounted. We may have assigned them less value because in the eyes of those around us they seemed unimportant. Or we may have given far too much credence to something that was meaningful for others, but not for ourselves.
I don’t know what would be my Last Lecture or my eulogy. Do you?
