This story was picked by the media in October/November of 2007. I thought I’d blog about this again in case anyone missed it the first time - this is life changing. After hearing Dr. Randy Pausch’s last lecture it greatly moved me to step back and take a look at my life. To decide what is important and am I truly doing the right things to achieve my dreams in life.
“If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you,” said Dr. Pausch, a 46-year-old computer science professor who has incurable pancreatic cancer. (source: post-gazette.com )
“Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch has been named one of Time Magazine’s 100 of the world’s most influential people in 2008. With equal parts humor and heart, Pausch recently delivered a one-of-a-kind last lecture that moved an overflow crowd at Carnegie Mellon — and is now moving audiences around the globe.” (source: cmu.edu )
In addition to a moving and motivational story by Dr. Pausch, he speaks the things we all know we should do, but never do. He gets down to the basics of life management, time management, and getting the most out of the time we have on this earth. Time is the one thing that is always constant. We can’t stop it - but we can get more out of it. This is underlying message I took away from Dr. Pausch’s last lecture.
I recommend everyone watch his presentation, download and view the powerpoints, read the lecture transcript, and pass this information along to someone they care about. In addition, I would revisit this information regularly as we all have a habit of forgetting what’s important to us. I have a few inspirational quotes posted on my bulletin board in my room as to see them every day and never forget what is important to me.
Please visit thelastlecture.com to learn more about the last lecture. Also visit Randy Pausch’s page for links to the full youtube video presentation, movie/audio version download, transcript, and other links.
The one item not linked to on his page is a copy of the powerpoint slides from his presentation. I was able to get a copy from a student at CMU - they can be downloaded here.
May 7th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I watched this quite a while ago…and was skeptical at first because its so long…but it was amazing! He definitely did a great job…and I was all teary-eyed.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Yeah, it hit close to home too! : )
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:19 am
How inspiring Randy Pausch is! If you liked “The Last Lecture”, another fantastic memoir I just read and highly recommend is “My Stroke of Insight” by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Her TEDTalk video (ted.com) has been seen as many times as The Last Lecture I think, and Oprah did 4 shows on her book, so there are a lot of similarities. In My Stroke of Insight, there’s a happy ending though. It’s an incredible story! I hear they’re making it into a movie.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Rhoda: I’ve downloaded/viewed Randy’s lecture a few times now, he speaks the truth. The unfortunate thing is we tend to forget the simple things - revisiting his lecture every months reminds me of what is important. We all need the positive reinforcement of his “message”.
I’ll definitely be sure to look into Dr. Taylor’s lecture! Thanks for the great link!