Randy Pausch - Amazing

It is one of the most popular videos on the web today. As I speak, the abridged Oprah version is the "Most Viewed" video on Google. It's called "The Last Lecture" and it was given by Randy Pausch (the links to the videos are at the bottom). Randy is one of the most gifted computer scientists in the field today. Most of his work will not be seen by the general public for many years, but his advancements in computer generated worlds and virtual reality are absolutely phenomenal.

There is this hypothetical "Last Lecture" that many professors will give once a year. The idea is that if, as a professor, you were given one last chance to lecture, what you teach... In the summer of 2006, Dr. Randy Pausch was diagnosed with the deadly pancreatic canter countless surgeries and many sessions of chemo, Randy was given only months to live. It turns out that this 'hypothetical' "last lecture" was all too real.

Randy is an absolutely amazing speaker. His skills as a professor extend far beyond computer science. His teachings are life long. He has taught thousands about life and still manages to transform lives. Randy is still going strong, still going into surgery every few weeks. The doctors still give him "a few months of good heath left". Randy has not stopped teaching. Even in the face of loosing his own life, Randy has continued to make the world a better place. His "Last Lecture" video has been past from blog to blog and his message has been heard by hundreds of thousands. It would not surprise me if many of you reading this have seen or heard about him.

Randy's original "Last Lecture" was given September 18, 2007 and titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". Simply put, the lecture walks through Randy's life, his childhood dreams, how he has achieved them, lessons learned along the way, and how we can enable our own dreams, and the dreams of others.

I watched this video back in September, very shortly after it came out. At this time, the video was not very popular at that time. When I first watched it, I was completely amazed. This video, simply put, transformed my life. This time in my life was life changing, and this video has definitely apart of that change.

I am not going to try to summarize the video, because I would not even come close to doing so. I will, however, say that the summarized versions do not pay tribute to the full-length lecture. I urge you to set aside an hour and a half, and watch the full length video.

I will try to summarize one simple topic which is discussed countless times throughout the video. One of Randy's life goals as a child was to be a Disney Imagineer. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon, he sent his resume to Disney. Randy was nicely rejected. At this point in his speech, Randy brings up the metaphor of Brick Walls. He thought he was well on his way to achieving one of his childhood dreams of working for Disney when he was stopped dead in his tracks. But, "brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want something... Brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough". This is such a simple and profound idea. After a long string of events, and a lot of hard work, Randy did end up working for Disney years later. A simple proof that if you want something enough, and you are willing to put in the effort, it will happen.

I think this single idea has stuck with me for the 6 months since I have seen the video. I would not be surprised if I remember this metaphor for the rest of my life. There are many brick walls throughout life, but they are always there for a reason.

..to be continued...

• Full length "Last Lecture"
• Reprise of "Last Lecture" on Oprah

I am really tired, and therefore, I am going to bed. I will write a lot more on this lecture as well as several others given by Randy.