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Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch is dying from pancreatic cancer, and he gave his last lecture at Carnegie Mellow university on September 18, 2007.
The topic of his lecture was not about his work, not about computational algorithms or immersive virtual reality systems -- its topic was instead:
Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.
The lecture, just for his students, colleagues and visitors, swelled to over 400 attendees in the large McConomy Auditorium. It was recorded and released on youtube where it became a world wide phenomena.
The Apostle Paul counsels us in the 13th Corinthians, verse 11: When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things.
Yet there are some childish things that should not be put away, or at least not thought of as childish things, and that is -- our Hopes and our Dreams. They are what we begin with, and they will be with us in the end -- if we keep, hold, and cherish them always.
Give yourself a quiet uninterrupted hour and 15 minutes to listen to his lecture. He's a very successful happy guy, and he gives some great advice, but what stands out, in the end, is what we think are the most important things are not really those things -- it's something else: it's not what we get (though that is very important stuff!) -- it's what we give, and we give though the realization of our hopes and dreams:
