Tuesday, April 14, 2009

really achieving your childhood dreams

You may or may not be familiar with the book The Last Lecture. I haven't yet read the book, although it's definitely on my "want to read" list. I did, however, see the author Dr. Randy Pausch on Oprah last year before he died from pancreatic cancer. Here's a little information from http://www.thelastlecture.com/aboutbk.htm about Randy and the book:

"A lot of professors give talks titled 'The Last Lecture.' Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: 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?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave-“Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”-wasn’tabout dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living."

I've included a youtube video of the mini-version of the lecture Dr.Pausch gave on Oprah last year. The video is only about 10 minutes long, and in my opinion, worth watching...although you may want to have a box of kleenex nearby.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ya9BXClRw&feature=PlayList&p=E5023B92BBF7FE7F&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=36

Namaste'
Yogadiva

1 comment:

karmacoy said...

yep, you were right. It made me cry. nice clip.