Sunday's PARADE news magazine featured the story of Randy Pausch, an IT professor at Carnegie Mellon University. I was impressed and delighted by the intellect paired with basic sensible approach to leading your life. The important word there is "leading" your life. He is very conscious and deliberate about the best approaches to life and supports it with humorous examples from his own life.
Today the quote that stands out most from the lecture is: "if you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you that means they gave up on you... critics tell you they still care." That is a mind set that truly looks at feedback as a gift and it sat me back a bit. Tomorrow another quote will stand out, or the next time I view it I will see something else, and that is why I am bookmarking the lecture to return again.
To me, he is the best kind of inspiration: nothing phony or pretentious, simply sensible, simply smart, and so very poignant knowing the back story of his personal health battle.
All of this was done during his last lecture at the university before going on sabbatical, only this sabbatical is actually permanent as he found out just the week prior to his speech (last fall) that he had terminal pancreatic cancer.
Last night, ABC aired a special with Diane Sawyer featuring Dr. Pausch. Oh, I hope you were able to see it. If not, watch for a repeat broadcast. In the meantime, here is a link to their site http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/LastLecture/ with highlights of the program and the complete videos of his initial lecture. I hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to see and hear him. I can't overemphasize the value of exploring bright perspectives outside our usual path in our daily search for excellence, for a life unexamined is truly not worth living.
