A slight change in topics for this post. In early 2008, I watched a video on a local PBS station that ended up having a major impact on my life. It was called "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" and it was incredible.
Carnegie-Mellon University has a long-standing lecture series that used to be called 'The Last Lecture' and is now called Journeys. The premise was, if you only had one lecture left to give, what would it be about. In 2007, they asked Professor Randy Pausch to give the lecture. What I'm not sure they did or didn't know was, it was to be his last lecture at C-M. He'd been diagnosed in 2006 with pancreatic cancer and had found out in August of 2007 that it had recurred and metastasized. He was given 3-6 months of good health left to live.
His lecture was taped and uploaded to YouTube. It hit 1 million views in that first month alone. As of just the other night, it was closing in on 11 million views. And that's not counting how many times it's been downloaded for free from iTunes or bought from C-M University.
What's the big deal about the lecture? He used his greatest gifts of humor and intelligence and gave a lecture that wasn't about how he was living the last few months of his life but how he'd lived his life, period. All the best pieces of advice that anyone could give anyone were in that lecture. Lots of laughter, intimate stories from his life and teaching days, and all given in such a way that you didn't realize what you were really learning, which was how to live your life the right way. He celebrated his wife's birthday at the end of the lecture and he ended it by telling everyone that the lecture wasn't meant for those who'd just finished hearing it. It was meant for his 3 children.
Dr. Pausch died on July 25, 2008. He has been given tons of recognition. Carnegie-Mellon has named a bridge at their campus after him, because he bridged the distance between the different studies there. Disney has awarded 2 fellowships in his name and they have a plaque at Disney World with two of his favorite sayings written on it.
JT's Bottom Line: If everyone could just live their lives the way he did, this world would be a much better place.
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