Randy Pausch: The Last Lecture
June 9, 2008 by mhueter
Filed under Health, Sportsmanship, inspiration
It’s almost 1am; I just got done watching Randy Paush’s The Last Lecture. Having been diagnosed with brain cancer, this professor of computer science at Garnegie Mellon University gave a talk about life to a group of 500 attendees at the University. The lessons learned can be applied to people of all ages and walks of life.
Randy has some great advice in this piece. You can tell he is incredibly intelligent. And when you combine that kind of intelligence with an ability to speak, educate and socialize, you can truly change the world. I think with this lecture, he has done just that.
Randy’s lecture has generated national attention online (the YouTube video has over 2 million 600 thousand hits) and the print version of this lecture continues to be a best-seller.
My favorite part of the video is his “head fake” analogy. He expalained that when you make people believe they’re having fun and not learning, that’s when you can teach them the most. He’s absolutely right.
Randy emphasized the importance of childhood dreams. One of his biggest dreams was to play in the NFL. Not having totally completed this dream, Randy said that it doesn’t matter, because he’s taken lessons from football that he carried over to his life as an educator.
Telling myself that I would only watch a few minutes of the video, I ended up staying up the entire one hour and 18 minutes to finish this lecture.
Randy is an excellent example of an individual who has changed the world. And he just happened to have played sports as a child. Coincidence? Probably not.
If you haven’t taken an hour out of your life to watch this video yet, what are you waiting for?
Click here to watch it in YouTube.
I am not a person who likes the computer but I just spent 4 hrs trying to get to a blog about Randy Pauch I hope this is it I am a nurse that works with pts with terminal illness. Most of the time I Get there and the pt is already unrespmsive so I hear about them through their family and friends. It is such an honour to have seen the interview and read his book. The man is amazing for his directness and love o f life Jai and his kids. As Randy said we will all get to meet the reeper, there is no avoiding that.If I could I would trade places with him in a second We need in this world more time with someone like him to show us how to love life and to be happy So reeper if you hear this call on me and leave Randy here. T Rose
T Rose,
Thanks for your comment. I’m glad that you were able to find my blog post, as you were in such a long search for one.
Next time you are in need of a blog about a certain topic, check out Google Blog Search. I typed in “The Last Lecture” and got about 50,000 hits. It can be found at http://blogsearch.google.com/
I agree, his story is truly amazing, and I’m glad you are able to share it with your patients. Health professionals who go the extra mile to help their patients is a gift as great as a man like Randy. So keep doing your thing.