The Last Lecture

At 47, Randy Pausch had already lived what many would define as a full life. He knew pancreatic cancer would take him sooner than expected, so he didn't waste the time he had left.

Title: The Last Lecture

Author: Randy Pausch

Pages: 206

Genre: Nonfiction; Advice, Self-Help, Memoir

Listened to audiobook

Recommended: If you like inspiring stories about real people.

Song: "If Tomorrow Never Comes" by Garth Brooks

Lifetime of Achievement

My brief stint as a Mary Kay consultant taught me to "Earn the right to tell my story". Randy Pausch certainly earned the right to tell his.

In this part-memoir/part lecture, computer science and virtual reality genius Randy Pausch shares his incites on life in the shadow of his death.

Randy Pausch seems like the kind of guy who just couldn't chill out. He was always up to something, whether it was sports or family or academia or coding or taking someone to Disneyworld. (Though he could have spent more time on his eyebrows.) He maximized the time he had, even before he knew he was dying.

Carnegie Mellon Last Lecture

I thought this book would be a transcript of Pausch's last lecture at Carengie Mellon University, "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". Instead it is a story about the events leading up to the lecture.

Having never seen or heard his lecture, I didn't follow Pausch's references to it. The book is written with the assumption that you have already seen the lecture. Beause of that that book does not stand alone. But trust me, I intend on watching the real last lecture soon.

Here it is:

Breaking Brick Walls

Pausch unabashedly states his opinions, be they common consenses or tangential of the norm. He looks death in the face and decides to make the most of it, and publicly at that. He was denied admission to the college of his choice, as well as Disney's Imagineer program. (Both of these he ended up doing anyway.) When NASA would not let him ride in the "vomit comet" as a faculty member, he scanned the fine print and got the press pass that would allow him entry.

The common theme of breaking through brick walls in your progress is repeated many times in this book. What may at first seem like a permanent hindrance will become a pile of rubble in your wake. It did, at least, for Randy Pausch.

Audiobook

Since it's actually narrated by the author, it adds that much more personality to the recording.

Bringing It Home

I plan on finding a beautiful copy of this book and adding it to my shelf. It's chock full of humble, motivating advice, and I want to be able to pick it up to use as reference.

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