You need to know about Randy Pausch if you haven't already. He's a computer sciences professor at Carnegie Mellon University who prepared a "life lecture" that more than 10 million people have tuned into.
Dr. Pausch is my age (47), and dying of pancreatic cancer, a disease that kills 95 percent of its victims, usually within months of diagnosis.
The NY Times describes the lecture as "a whimsical and poignant talk about Captain Kirk, zero gravity and achieving childhood dreams. . . . The lecture was not about cancer. Instead, he says, it was simply a father’s effort to digest a lifetime of advice for his children into one talk — a talk that Dr. Pausch knew he would not be around long enough to deliver in person. The children are Dylan, 6; Logan, 4; and Chloe, almost 2."
“I’m speaking only to them,” he told the Times. “I didn’t set out to tell the world about how to live life."
But that's exactly what the lecture has turned into. As I said, more than 10 million have already listened to the 70-minute talk, and it's been translated into seven languages. A book is being prepared on the dying man's advice for a happy and fulfilling life.
You can listen to the lecture here and think about what you would say if given his circumstances and chances.
1 comment:
The book is out. It's called "The Last Lecture". Haven't read it, so I can't comment on it.
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