Randy Pausch and Living

"Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough. They are there to keep out the other people." -Randy Pausch

Someone that you may have known and if not, should have known about died this past Thursday night (July 24). Randy Pausch was a Carnegie-Mellon professor who happened to get pancreatic cancer. He is best known for his gift to everyone in the form of a lecture called, "The Last Lecture."



A very inciteful and wonderful example or 'roadmap' on how to live ones life. I feel close to the stroy only because my own mother is battling Pancreatic Cancer.

So in rememberance and thankfulness to him sharing with all of us, I give you thoughts from his lecture (by way of The Social Capital Blog".

- "When there’s an elephant in the room introduce him."

- "If there’s anything I want to do so badly, I should have already done it."

- "We can’t change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I’m not as depressed as you think I should be, I’m sorry to disappoint you."

- "Tell The Truth. All The Time. No one is pure evil."

- "Be willing to apologize. Proper apologies have three parts: 1) What I did was wrong. 2) I’m sorry that I hurt you. 3) How do I make it better? It’s the third part that people tend to forget…. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself."

- "Show gratitude. Gratitude is a simple but powerful thing."

- "Find the best in everybody…. Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you. It might even take years, but people will show you their good side. Just keep waiting."

- "If you want to achieve your dreams, you better learn to work and play well with others…[you have] to live with integrity."

- "Never find anger a way to make things better."

- "How do you get people to help you? You can’t get there alone. People have to help you and I do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being earnest. I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person any day, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term."

- "Loyalty is a two-way street."

- "Get a feedback loop and listen to it. Your feedback loop can be this dorky spreadsheet thing I did, or it can just be one great man who tells you what you need to hear. The hard part is the listening to it."

- "When you are doing something badly and no one’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are the ones still telling you they love you and care."

- "Don’t bail: the best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap."

- "Don’t complain, Just work harder. [showing picture on screen] That’s a picture of Jackie Robinson. It was in his contract not to complain, even when the fans spit on him. You can spend it complaining or playing the game hard. The latter is likely to be more effective."

- "Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted…. I probably got more from that dream [of playing professional football] and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones that I did accomplish."

- "Decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eyeore. I’m a Tigger."

- "It is not about achieving your dreams but living your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you."

- "Never underestimate the importance of having fun. I’m dying and I’m having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day, because there’s no other way to play it….Having fun for me is like a fish talking about the importance of water. I don’t know how it is like not to have fun…"

- "You can tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs. But at the end of the day, a whole lot of people will have a whole lot of fun."

- "Better to fail spectacularly than do something mediocre." [Randy Pausch gave out a First Penguin award each year when he was teaching to the biggest failure in trying something big and new because he thought this should be celebrated. First Penguins are the ones that risk that the water might be too cold.]

- "About his pancreatic cancer: It’s unlucky, but it not unfair. We all stand on a dartboard and some of us randomly get hit by pancreatic cancer. But my children won’t have me for them and that’s not fair."

- "Someone’s going to push my family off a cliff pretty soon and I won’t be there to catch them and that breaks my heart. But I have some time to sew some nets to cushion the fall so that seems like the best and highest use of my time and I better get to work."

- "I’m sorry I won’t be around to raise my kids. It makes me very sad but I can’t change that fact, so I did everything I could with the time I have and the time I had to help other people."

- The importance of people instead of things. Such as the story he told of buying a new convertible that he was so proud of and taking his niece and nephew for a ride. Randy’s sister, the kid’s mother was telling them how important it was to keep the car pristine and the kids were laughing because at the same time he was pouring a can of orange soda on the back seats. His sister asked what are you doing and he said “it’s just a thing.” And nephew Chris wound up being really grateful because he had the flu and wound up throwing up on way home. “And I don’t care how much joy you get out of owning a shiny new thing; it’s not as good I felt from making sure that an 8 year old didn’t have to feel guilty for having the flu.”

- "It is important to have specific childhood dreams." (For example, Randy wanted to play football in the NFL, write an article for the World Book Encyclopedia, experience the Weightlessness of Zero Gravity, be Captain Kirk from Star Trek, work for the Disney Company.)
- "Be good at something; it makes you valuable…. Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome."

- "I’ve never understood pity and self-pity as an emotion. We have a finite amount of time. Whether short or long, it doesn’t matter. Life is to be lived."

- "To be cliché, death is a part of life and it’s going to happen to all of us. I have the blessing of getting a little bit of advance notice and I am able to optimize my use of time down the home stretch."

Thank you Randy and peace be upon your family.

Be A Tigger - Randy Pausch

In the face of impossible odds, there will be those that fall and crumble with no belief in continuing until the end. There will be those that take a more positive path and live life to its fullest. As this video reminds us, "you can spend your life complaining or spend it playing the game hard."

Randy Pausch is a person much like my mother in the sense that both have pancreatic cancer. But they are also a like in a way that both are content and positive about their condition. They are choosing to make any remaining time a good one, while fighting for a positive outcome in their individual battle against cancer.

I hope for anyone who is struggling with any of life's stones thrown your way; that you are able to take inspiration and strength from those around you.



For more on Randy Pausch, click on his link. For lots of good information and the ability to support the research to control, contain, CURE this cancer is at Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

Be strong, be brave and reach out to your dreams in order to achieve them.