Are You Achieving Your Childhood Dreams?
Why Now Is The Time To Feast On Your Life
I recently read The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. This has been on my reading list for quite a while and I couldn’t have picked it up at a better time than the beginning of a new year. The New York Times best-selling book was born out of Pausch’s last lecture September 2007, at Carnegie Mellon University where he taught Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design. This particular lecture held more meaning than the usual lecture because Pausch had only a few months to live. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a year earlier and was notified a month before his lecture that the cancer was terminal.
To many of the audiences’ surprise, 400 in attendance, Pausch didn’t give a lecture about dying. He lectured about having fun, overcoming obstacles (he referred to as brick walls), enabling others to dream and seizing every moment. It was about living. In fact, his lecture was titled, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.”
Pausch wanted to give a lasting, positive memory to his students and the family he was leaving behind. In deep reflection, he recounted that some of his proudest achievements in life and his profession came from realizing his childhood dreams. Astonishingly, he was actually able to accomplish all of his childhood dreams in one way or another like working with Walt Disney Imagineering. Below are a few of the many meaningful messages I took away from Pausch’s last lecture:
“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.”
“The key question to keep asking is, are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have. ”
“Time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think.”
“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”
“A lot of people want a shortcut. I find the best shortcut is the long way, which is basically two words: work hard.”
“When we’re connected to others, we become better people.”
“It’s not about how to achieve your dreams, it’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you.”
“Get a feedback loop and listen to it…When people give you feedback, cherish it and use it.”
As this year closes and another one opens, reflect on what’s transpired and what to look forward to in 2017. If there’s anything I’ve learned from The Last Lecture, it’s that time and energy are finite. Use the new year as an invitation to discover things about yourself — even the painful parts you don’t like. Learn to live in the practice, be guided by your childhood dreams and feast on your life. Pausch is a great example that if you make a commitment to work hard while having fun then you won’t have to chase your dreams — they’ll come to you.
