Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The Last Lecture

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave this lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. As he prepared for his speech and even while he spoke his words of wisdom he couldn't help repeating to himself the grim prediction his doctors gave just a month before - you have 3 - 6 months of "good health" left. Think about that for a few minutes. . . . .

What if you were told that very same thing today? What would you do? Would you curl up in a ball and wait to die? Would you so bravely go on with life and try to be truly happy - - or could you be strong enough to actually LIVE the rest of your life?

What about your children? Could you go on like life was the same as it has always been -pretending that you weren't about to leave everything that you hold dear - or how unfair it was that you are forced to leave the perfect life you worked so hard to achieve just to give your kids a few more precious months of normalcy... a few more memories of what life was like when Daddy was here.

Some of you may have read or know about his book. You may have seen him on t.v. or heard about his passing but you may not have taken the time to look him up and get to know the generous and wise Randy P. aka the mad hatter - lol. This video is worth every second of your life that you spend watching it - take your time and watch it all the way to the end (you will thank me for it). Spend some time to really think about how it relates to you and your life. Let it help you be a happier person, living in the now.

Here is a link: http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html that you might enjoy if you want to read more from Randy. These are notes from him with updates on his health and pix of him and his family and links to things that he found interesting.

edit: This is the main page with lots of stuff like interviews and links to his book etc. http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/.