in 111 Books in 2011

#97/111: The Last Lecture

What is it about?

If you haven’t heard about Randy Pausch, he was a computer science professor at the CMU and had pancreatic cancer. He hold his famous lecture about achieving one’s childhood dreams and told about his. 

What can I learn?

You choose to be happy or sad: Although he was diagnosed with pancreas cancer he was still optimistic. He could just cried all day long and complain about his faith. Or he could choose to enjoy his last months alive and that was was he did.

Live your dreams: I know some people that talk since a few years about doing some special, like migrating into an other country or switching their jobs. After some time a dream becomes some sort of utopia which will never reached but the dream about it will stay you motivated. That’s totally ok. A few dreams shouldn’t be lived. It’s just that you should look if there are opportunities to fulfill your dreams. It took Randy over 20 years to finally experience zero gravity but he has experienced it.

What would you do, if you knew that you will die in 12 months?

Conclusion

I enjoyed the book and his actual lecture. The book tells mostly about the lecture but there’s also additional narrations about his live before and after the lecture. Such a book makes one grateful of living without any serious illnesses. It inspired me and that’s in my opinion the greatest thing one person can do.

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