The Last Lecture

I hope many of you have heard of Randy Pausch and his book The Last Lecture, if you haven't I highly recommend you read it and get on youtube and view the actual last lecture.

Randy Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, PA when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. His amazing spirit and ability to cope with this unfathomable matter has inspired many people to follow their childhood dreams just as he did. I'm not going to tell you the whole story, you should find out yourself.

The book, a national bestseller, is a short 206 pages long and is full of useful information that Pausch wanted to leave behind for his children but is also insightful for anyone.

Paucsh had 6 childhood dreams:

1. Being in zero gravity
2. Playing in the NFL
3. Authoring an article in the World Book encyclopedia
4. Being Captain Kirk
5. Winning stuffed animals
6. Being a Disney Imagineer

He completed all but one and even though he is shy one childhood dream coming true he believes that he got more out of the person training him for that dream than actually making it come true. You will need to read the book or listen to the last lecture to find out which one it is.

The book has put new perspective into my life. When I recently changed my major from Biochemistry to English, I thought I was making the biggest mistake of my life, but I soon remembered after reading Pausch's novel, it was a childhood dream of mine to be a journalist.

Part V of the novel really was inspiring, Pausch offers advice on how to live your life the only way he knew how, by his own example.

Give Yourself Permission to dream
Hip is short term, earnest is a character trait that never leaves
Life is too short to fuss about the small things
Acknowledge your responsibility in case of damage
Don't Complain, Work harder
Treat the disease, not the symptom
Don't Obsess Over What People Think
Work in Groups
Look for the Best in Everybody
Watch actions, don't listen to words
Learn to love cliches
Experience
Get People's Attention
Hand write Thank You Notes
Be loyal
Pay it Forward
Everyone loves Thin Mints
Be prepared
Learn how to apologize
Tell the truth
Look at the whole crayon box
There is more than one way to measure profits and losses
No Job is Beneath you
Know Where You Are
Brick Walls are there for a reason
Be a Communitarian
Ask
Be Tigger
Understand Optimism and strive for it
Listen to What others have to say

It's a lot, but I'll never forget the examples that Paucsh used to explain these life changing messages.

Pausch talks about 'Head Fakes' in the book. A head fake is when someone is teaching you something but has the incentive that you learn something more meaningful in the end. It tricks you. The head fake of the book was that it was for his 3 very young children and not for the reader.

What's the head fake in this blog? That you'll go read the book? No, I know you'll read the book, I want you to read the book and take something from it as I did.