Review
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"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the
hand." --Randy Pausch
A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture."
Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on
what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't
help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to
the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish
tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie
Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to
imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with
terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your
Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the
importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of
others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you
have...and you may find one day that you have less than you
think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to
believe. It was about living.
In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration
and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and
given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for
generations to come.
Questions for Randy Pausch
--------------------------
We were shy about barging in on Randy Pausch's valuable time to
ask him a few questions about his expansion of his famous Last
Lecture into the book by the same name, but he was gracious
enough to take a moment to answer. (See Randy to the right with
his kids, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe.) As anyone who has watched the
lecture or read the book will understand, the really crucial
question is the last one, and we weren't surprised to learn that
the "secret" to winning giant stuffed animals on the midway, like
most anything else, is sheer persistence.
.com: I apologize for asking a question you must get far more
often than you'd like, but how are you feeling?
Pausch: The tumors are not yet large enough to affect my ,
so all the problems are related to the chemotherapy. I have
neuropathy (numbness in fingers and toes), and varying degrees of
GI discomfort, mild , and igue. Occasionally I have an
unusually bad reaction to a chemo infusion (last week, I spiked a
103 fever), but all of this is a small price to pay for walkin'
around.
.com: Your lecture at Carnegie Mellon has reached millions of
people, but even with the short time you apparently have, you
wanted to write a book. What did you want to say in a book that
you weren't able to say in the lecture?
Pausch: Well, the lecture was written quickly--in under a week.
And it was time-limited. I had a great six-hour lecture I could
give, but I suspect it would have been less popular at that
length ;-). A book allows me to cover many, many more stories
from my life and the attendant lessons I hope my kids can take
from them. Also, much of my lecture at Carnegie Mellon focused on
the professional side of my life--my students, colleagues and
career. The book is a far more personal look at my childhood
dreams and all the lessons I've learned. Putting words on paper,
I've found, was a better way for me to share all the yearnings I
have regarding my wife, children and other loved ones. I knew I
couldn't have gone into those subjects on stage without getting
emotional.
.com: You talk about the importance--and the possibility!--of
following your childhood dreams, and of keeping that childlike
sense of wonder. But are there things you didn't learn until you
were a grownup that helped you do that?
Pausch: That's a great question. I think the most important thing
I learned as I grew older was that you can't get anywhere without
help. That means people have to want to help you, and that begs
the question: What kind of person do other people seem to want to
help? That strikes me as a pretty good operational answer to the
existential question: "What kind of person should you try to be?"
.com: One of the things that struck me most about your talk was
how many other people you talked about. You made me want to meet
them and work with them--and believe me, I wouldn't make much of
a computer scientist. Do you think the people you've brought
together will be your legacy as well?
Pausch: Like any teacher, my students are my biggest professional
legacy. I'd like to think that the people I've crossed paths with
have learned something from me, and I know I learned a great deal
from them, for which I am very grateful. Certainly, I've
dedicated a lot of my teaching to helping young folks realize how
they need to be able to work with other people--especially other
people who are very different from themselves.
.com: And last, the most important question: What's the secret
for knocking down those milk bottles on the midway?
Pausch: Two-part answer:
1) long arms
2) discretionary income / persistence
Actually, I was never good at the milk bottles. I'm more of a
ring toss and softball-in-milk-can guy, myself. More seriously,
though, most people try these games once, don't win immediately,
and then give up. I've won *lots* of midway stuffed animals, but
I don't ever recall winning one on the very first try. Nor did I
expect to. That's why I think midway games are a great metaphor
for life.
Book Description
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Professor Randy Pausch's moving and inspirational book based
on his extraordinary Last Lecture about realising one's dreams
and ambitions.