For me, this is a quick reread as I read it years ago, but didn’t recall the details. That was on the recommendation of a nurse in the transplant unit who praised it, while we watched helplessly as a patient was dying.
A computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, Randy Pausch was at the height of his career at 47 in 1987, when he was diagnosed with terminal metastatic pancreatic cancer. He had a loving wife and three children under seven. He decided to give a last lecture to a crowded audience about what he had learned about living. It is available on line and is very touching and surprisingly upbeat. I listened to it after rereading the book which is not the lecture per se but all about living life to the fullest, fulfilling your childhood dreams, and helping others to do the same, with absolutely no self-pity.
The lecture itself is also very upbeat and filled with some quite extraordinary humour. There is little religiosity to it and no mention or hope for any afterlife except this wonderful line about his roommate: “If I am going to hell, I will request 6 years off for time served.”
Unlike me, he was grateful that he knew that he was dying as it gave him time to prepare his family, offer sage advice and make sure everything was in order for a life without him. I would much prefer to have no warning and die suddenly and painlessly, but I am not 47.
A couple great quotes:
“He was proof that, sometimes, the most impenetrable brick walls are made of flesh.” (Of a certain dean.)
“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”
This is a great book, but my retrospective advice is to view the YouTube video of the actual lecture before reading it for the best experience of this remarkable man.
9.8/10
The Passionate Reader 