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If you
were dying, and you had the chance to impart your final words
of wisdom on the world, what would you say? That was the premise
behind Carnegie Mellon's "Last Lecture" series. Speakers were
invited to present their hypothetical last lectures in front
of an audience.
In the
summer of 2007, organizers invited computer science professor
Randy Pausch to speak. What they didn't know was that, just
days earlier, Pausch discovered that the pancreatic cancer
he'd been fighting was terminal. Doctors told him he had three
to six months of good health remaining.
And so,
on September 18, 2007, when Pausch took the stage in front
of an over-capacity audience, he really was delivering his
last lecture. He titled his talk "How to Achieve Your Childhood
Dreams."
The lecture
itself took on a life of its own—so much so that Pausch
worked with Wall Street Journal writer Jeffrey Zaslow to turn
the lecture into a book titled, appropriately enough, The
Last Lecture. The book not only includes and expands upon
Pausch's emotionally charged speech, but it also tells the
tale of how that speech was created and the impact of his
cancer on his wife and three young children.
Despite
that, however, The Last Lecture is not a book about
dying. Instead, it is very much a brilliant book about living.
The Last Lecture is a how-to manual for seizing the
day and living life to the fullest. After all, "If at first
you don't succeed…try, try a cliché," Pausch jokes.
Pausch
avoids melodrama. There's no saccharine, no fluff. The story
is heartwarming without being cutesy. It's challenging without
being esoteric. It's honest without ever sinking into self-indulgence.
This is no pity party. It's a celebration.
The
Last Lecture stands as Pausch's final legacy—to his
children as much as to the audience to whom he delivered the
lecture—and so it's jam-packed with warm-and-fuzzy stories,
cute jokes, and unfailing optimism. "Complaining does not
work as a strategy," he writes. "We all have finite time and
energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve
our goals. And it won't make us happier."
As a
reader would expect, the book is full of the kinds of life
lessons a dad would want to pass along to his kids or a professor
would want to pass along to his students. Pausch of course
drops pearls of wisdom like "dare to fail," "don't be afraid
to just ask," and "show gratitude," although he has his own
individual spins and stories to illustrate each point.
Instead
of saying "work hard," for instance, he prescribes The Friday
Night Solution. "As I see it," Pausch says, "if you work more
hours than somebody else, during those hours you learn more
about your craft. That can make you more efficient, more able,
even happier. Hard work is like compound interest in the bank.
The rewards build faster."
The writing
is pithy and earnest, and most readers will be able to zip
through it in an afternoon. But while the read may be quick,
the experience will linger because the book provides plenty
to ruminate on. Pausch not only offers a lot of his own food
for thought through the stories he tells, but those tidbits
invite readers to ask questions of their own. The Last
Lecture is a challenge to readers to consider their own
lives, their own priorities, their own dreams.
Pausch
passed away just recently, on July 28, 2008. But prior to
his passing, his last lecture touched millions of lives as
an internet phenomenon and as a bestselling book. Cynics may
dismiss the piece as feel-good schlock or be annoyed by last
lecture overexposure, but despite the mass-market slickness,
the book does provide a worthwhile reading experience. The
Last Lecture serves as an enduring and endearing reminder
that life is worth living.
(September,
2008)
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