Randy Pausch Computer Science Professor
In May 2008 Randy Pausch gave the charge to the graduates at Carnegie Mellon. He was a pancreatic cancer patient with metastatic cancer and was give 3 to 6 months to live. In six outstanding minutes he shares meaningful advice with the graduates. He says that we do not beat the Grim Reaper by living longer, we beat it by living well and fully. The Reaper will come for all of us. When he shows up it is too late to do all the things we would like to do. His two main pieces of advice are as follows:
1. It is not the things that we do in life that we regret on our dead bed, it is the things we do not do. "I assure you I've done a lot of stupid things and none of them bother me. All the mistakes and doupie things, and times I was embarrassed they don't matter to me. What's important is when I got the chance to do something cool, I tried to grab for it."
2. Follow your passion and your heart. You will need to find your passion. If you did not find it, you will find it later, in your 30s or 40s but do not give up on finding it and follow it. You will not find it in things or money because the more you have the more you will use that as a metric and would like to get more. The important things are those that fill you from inside. It will be grounded in people, in your relationship with people.
More by Randy Pausch: Last Lecture, the book and his impressive last lecture speech.
Carnegie MellonMay 18, 2008
Sent in by: Cristina
Posted on: 06.26.2009