The Last Lecture, lessons in living by Randy Pausch

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."

“What will you do if you are told you only have a few days to live?” This is a question we ask while interviewing celebrities. Most often the answers range from wanting to have fun like they have never or spending time with family and friends. The answers are pretty straightforward and not out of the ordinary.... possibly because they know this is a rhetoric question and they are not really ‘going to die’. However, what if you truly know that you have only a few months to live! What will you do?

“The last Lecture” Lessons in living by Randy Pausch is one such book which tackles this question because Randy is someone who has only a few months to live! Randy Pausch was a professor of Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon University. Diagnosed with ten tumors in his liver, he was given only a few months to live.

A father of three young children and married to the woman of his dreams, he could have easily felt sorry for himself. But “that wouldn’t do them, or me, any good”, thinks Randy. So while embracing every moment with his family and doing the logistical things necessary to ease their path into a life without him, Randy comes across a chance to deliver his ‘Last Lecture’. These lectures which were routinely conducted at Carnegie Mellon University were also videotaped. “The last lecture is a common exercise on college campuses. Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them...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?”

‘The Last Lecture’ would give Randy the one chance to show his children, when they grew up and understood, what he really was.

This book is Randy’s Last Lecture, which he delivers to a packed auditorium of 400 plus students and faculty. While it would have been natural and understandable for Randy to talk about his cancer and his insights into the decease; he instead decides to base his lecture on achieving his childhood dreams. “...despite the cancer, I truly believed I was a lucky man because I had lived out these dreams. And I had lived out my dreams, in great measure, because of things I was taught by all sorts of extraordinary people along the way. If I was able to tell my story with the passion I felt, my lecture might help others find a path to fulfilling their own dreams.”

This is a book about a regular guy with oodles of passion for life, for living and for his subject. While I won’t give away Randy’s lecture, I will pick a few quotes that resonated with me very well. These make perfect sense in today’s world and are things we need to teach our children to enable them to lead better and more fulfilling lives.

“The instinct in our house was never to sit around like slobs and wonder. We knew a better way: Open the encyclopaedia. Open the dictionary. Open your mind.” That's so true. I always believe “when in doubt, ask!” Often when I myself am giving lectures about PCOS and Thyroid in colleges, I always encourage the audience to ask questions. Ask questions to me and to the doctors sitting there. No question is stupid or irrelevant. Opening the mind is vital to growth. We are lucky to have the encyclopaedia, the dictionary and Google to help us out. So ASK!

Randy talks about how grounded his parents were and how that helped keep him grounded. For instance after he got his PhD, his mother would introduce him as “This is my son. He’s a doctor, but not the kind who helps people.” How many of us would say that? We live in an era where boosting yours and your child’s ego plays precedence over his/her real contribution or worth. Don’t get me wrong. My children are precious to me; but I think knowing and understanding their potential is more important than gloating over fluke wins!

Randy talks about his football coach – Coach Graham and how he used to ride his students hard. “Coach Graham worked in a no-coddling zone. He knew there was really only one way to teach kids how to develop self-esteem: You give them something they can’t do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process.”

Personally I believe this book should be made compulsory reading in all colleges irrespective of the stream chosen. This is a book which is a ‘self-help’ book without really being one. It’s an inspirational book which makes you want to work harder, try harder and thank God for the little pleasure in life.

I borrowed this book from a library, but now I am going to buy a copy to keep in my collection. This is a book I want my children to read when they grow up. This is a book I want to keep revisiting everytime I feel low, this is a book I will hand over to anyone losing hope and finally this is a book I will cherish.

Randy lost his battle with pancreatic cancer on July 25^th, 2008; but in his “Last Lecture”, he left behind a story to be retold.

In his words “I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children. If I were a painter, I would have painted for them. But I am a lecturer, so I lectured.”

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