Last Lecture

I recently finished Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture. Pausch describes the premise of the Last Lecture on college campuses saying,

"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 over the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? (p. 3)

What makes Pausch's text particularly powerful is that this Last Lecture is not hypothetical. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few months before the lecture, he delivers the lecture with a prognosis of 3-6 months of good health. He his happily married and has 3 children, the oldest is 6. It would be easy for Pausch to focus on "woe is me". What I like is that Pausch frames the question by considering impact on the world as opposed to focusing on what he wants for himself.

Pausch's wisdom is about "really achieving your childhood dreams", and speaks to how, ultimately, each of his childhood hopes has been fulfilled, but perhaps not in the way he imagined. For example, he never got to work at Disneyland as an Imagineer...but, he did get to become a de factor Imagineer during a sabbatical from his faculty appointment. Thinking about how childhood dreams, and how they have come to fruition in surprising ways, is sound advice.

Reading Pausch's book begs a response in the reader similar to that of the audience of a Last Lecture. As I read his text, I was invited to imagine my own "last lecture". And, at the moment, I'm still ruminating.