Monday, August 18, 2008

Last salute

Interrupting next post to pay homage to Randy Pausch.
He died on July 25th, 2008
I pay my respect to him.He has been a great inspiration to me.I wanted to meet him in person.
(I'm sad.)
We need more people like you.

Many of you must already know him.For the un-initiated, he's the guy who gave the "last lecture"; the wildly-popular and much viewed video on the net.



A book has been released on the same:


"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."
--Randy Pausch

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't about 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.

6 comments:

Enemy of the Republic said...

It is a wonderful book. Thank you for this.

DESPERADO said...

i suggest reading the book first before the video.

Unknown said...

I had heard of him never got around to reading his work. Sad to hear about his death,

Anonymous said...

I wasn't familiar with him but your quote - "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand" - reminds me of the old Kenny Rogers lyric:

"You've got to know when to hold up/Know when to fold up/know when to walk away/know when to run..."

Quite a lot of contemporary spiritual thinking says we deal the hand to ourselves but I think there's a world of evidence against that notion.

The Social Reformer said...

that book sounds awesome

DESPERADO said...

SJ:
try the book.(almost have become unofficial ambassador for the book.I'm gifting it to people around me whenever possible.)

Paul:
I do believe that we are the ones who deal the hand i.e we are the masters of our destiny.

rubenh:
thx for dropping by.
the book is really good.

"I walk the lonely roads,the only one that I've ever known."