Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture
Randy and his family

I watched Randy Pausch’s last lecture and I thought the video was very good. He seemed so happy even though he had cancer. He showed the audience that he was in good health by doing some pushups quite a few times. He also told the audience not to feel sad for him because that was not what he wanted from anyone. He showed them what he was not going to talk about because he didn’t find the topics important and wanted to have a fun time for his last lecture.

During his lecture, Pausch talks about his dreams as a kid and what he did and did not accomplish. He wanted to be in zero gravity, play in the NFL, write an article for the World Book encyclopedia, be Captain Kirk, win stuffed animals, and be a Disney Imagineer. He had a lot of dreams and accomplished a few but not all of them and he was fine with that. Since he did not get everything he wanted he said he learned many great things. From not playing in the NFL he learned even though you may not get as far as you want, you still learn many great things to use through life such as teamwork, discipline, sportsmanship, and fundamentals because without these things, he wouldn’t have got to where he has been.

He said a few things in the lecture that meant a lot to him, “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted”, “Wait, and people will surprise you,” and lastly “Don’t bail, the best gold is found at the bottom of barrels of crap.” He also talked about being self reflective because this can be the best thing for someone to learn how to use. It can help a person to better his or herself to be able to get along better with as a co-worker and a person. This can help many, many people accomplish many great things in their lives and help other accomplish much, much more. He also states you could be a Tigger or a Eeyore, and with this he meant you could be energetic and fun or sad and depressed and apparently he was a tigger because he never seemed down on himself.

His lecture makes you think about what he wants you to use in your life: be happy no matter what, have as much fun as you possibly can, help anyone any chance you can, be a good or better influence on a person, be prepared for what can happen. He also wanted people to know that you need to be good at something because that makes you valuable to someone else. These are some great things to know for anyone to use in their life.

The last few things that I enjoyed were that he didn’t do this lecture for himself or the audience but for his children. He wanted to leave them a lesson to learn from and to live by in their lives. The other was even though this was his last lecture; he didn’t leave all of the focus on him but rather shared it with his wife by bringing out a birthday cake for her and sang her happy birthday along with the rest of the audience. These are the reasons why I enjoyed this video and thought the Randy Pausch was a good teach and a better person to every person he has influenced in his life.