The Last Lecture Revisited

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about Randy Pausch, a professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon, who gave his “last lecture” in September after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  He was given 3 to 6 months to live. Professor Pausch chose to turn his story into an inspiration for others.  His “last lecture” has become an Internet phenomenon.  On Wednesday, April 9th, at 10PM Eastern, ABC News is presenting “The Last Lecture: A Love Story For Your Life“.  This man is an inspiration.  Set aside 60-minutes to be inspired.

The Last Lecture

I was sent this clip of Randy Pausch, a dying 47-Year-Old-Professor giving his “Last Lecture”. While this might sound a little depressing, it is anything but that! This man is legendary in the world of virtual reality and computer gaming. He’s the father of “Alice”, which is being used in middle schools, high schools and universities all over the world to get people involved in computer programming by making it wildly entertaining. They build 3D animated stories and games, and along the way, they learn to program. He has seductively created a toy that will create others who share his passion, long after he’s gone. It’s quite the legacy. And he has quite the attitude about his prognosis. I had never heard of “Alice” until recently, when one of my friend’s daughters returned from college all fired up about computer programming. As I started studying the role of Alice in computer science education, I was amazed at the results they’ve achieved. He, single-handedly, may be responsible for reversing the steady decline in computer science degrees being awarded in this country, and may slow the off-shoring of critical computer engineering jobs.

Watching this reminded me of two things. In Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, his Habit 2 is “begin with the end in mind”. He takes you through an exercise where you envision your funeral and you write out what you want a family member, a friend, a co-worker, and a community member say about you. Then you go about living your life so that they will say those things. Also, about 2 years ago, I went through the exercises given by Paul Chek in “Living Your Legacy” module of the PPS Success Mastery Program and I did much the same thing.

As Socrates said,

An unexamined life is not worth living!

I encourage you to review what you have learned up to this point and decide what you what your life has to say about you as you live it…and then put it into action.

Here’s one more clip of Prof. Pausch, as seen on ABC.