Randy Pausch Changed the World

For the past few days I've been trying to write a blog and I couldn't really decide on a topic. Each time I tried to write I came back to the same theme: what am I grateful for? Life is too short to be unhappy and moan about what I don't have. (But, I'd like to think I don't do that very often).

And then I clicked on the Yahoo homepage only to see that Randy Pausch had died (July 25, 2008). How could that be? I was shocked but then, I knew what I was going to write about.

Randy Pausch had terminal pancreatic cancer. He was a teacher at Carnegie Mellon and on September 18, 2007 he gave his "Last Lecture" to his students entitled, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". I believe that the first time I heard of him, was when he was on Oprah. He recited a portion of his speech that left the audience and I in complete tears. His humor and positivity and his overall personality is just amazing. I'm not sure, but I think if I knew I was going to die I wouldn't handle it like he did. His speech includes silly things like, "If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you." The whole "last lecture" series was meant to be hypothetical: if you were going to die, what would you want to leave the world with? Well, the series' name was changed to 'Journeys" just before Pausch's lecture. In response to this he said, "I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it."

I kind of thought that since Pausch had reached such a great amount of fame and basically inspired the world, God or who ever is upstairs, would somehow let him live longer. That's a bit childish, but I can dream. And, I do believe he lived well past his doctors' predictions.

As you may have guessed from the title, Pausch's lecture was about achieving your childhood dreams. He talks about wanting to be an astronaut, but only to feel zero gravity. Well, he did get to experience zero gravity eventually! And he wanted to be a Disney Imagineer. He applied to the program, got rejected but he didn't give up! And he got to do that too! He actually did a lot of things on his goal list. And it's not just about achieving your goals- even when you don't achieve what you want, the things you learned on the way there are just as valuable.

He really inspires me. My dad has no faith whatsoever in anything I want to do. And even I have doubted myself several times. But you know, I can't just give up and let other people run my life. I need to live for myself. I need to achieve my goals. The ones that are as simple as going to New York City for the first time and the ones that are as big as writing a play and seeing actors perform it. I could die tomorrow! Well, I accept that but I want to die knowing that I did all that I could do. And if I could impact one person or change their life, I'd be happy with that too.

So, to Randy Pausch, thank you! And my condolences to your beautiful family. But your death is not in vain and you'll live on in this world for a long time. You've left a positive mark.

Now, you readers, if for some reason you've been living under a rock and haven't seen this yet, I present Randy Pausch's Last Lecture.