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April 21, 2008 at 13:28:41
Book Review The LAST LECTURE by Randy Pausch by Rob Kall Page 1 of 2 page(s) |
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If you haven't seen the Youtube video, read the Parade Magazine or the Original Wall Street Journal articles that got this phenomenon off the ground, you're missing something you really want to be aware of. 
Randy Pausch is dying of cancer. He had surgery and chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer and it failed. He's been told he has three to six months to live, with the ten tumors in his liver that came back after his original treatment.
As is traditional at many universities, he gave a "last lecture" which is usually given by elder, retiring professors. But Pausch's last lecture because an internet youtube phenomenon. And now, after the book he did with Wall Street Journal writer Jeff Zaslow is out, titled, The Last Lecture , it is a huge, runaway bestseller, so hot, that Disney's Hyperion Publishing doesn't have enough to keep the books in stock in bookstores.
Now, I was lucky, after reading about Pausch's last lecture in the Wall Street Journal, I wrote to thank the article writer, and told him I'd posted it on my website.opednews dot com. A short time later, the writer offered to send me a copy to review. When my copy came in, my office manager, Rose, expressed interest in it, so I told her to go ahead and borrow it for a few days. I get a lot of review books, many unsolicited, and I only read a small percentage of them. But I knew I wanted to read this one. When I told Rose I wanted it back, so I could read it on an international flight, I asked her how she liked it. She told me she'd only read the first three chapters-- that she'd cried during reading each one. I was going on a trip with my 27 year old daughter and my better half, so, on the one hour drive to the airport, I started reading the book out loud, to them.
Rose was not alone. I found myself choking up, engaging in overlong pauses and needing to clear the tears from MY eyes as Pausch told his story, and the life lessons he'd learned. I kept asking if my partner or my daughter wanted me keep reading and they had me read until we parked the car.
I finished the book quickly and I have to say, it's unique. I've never read a book where over half the chapters (about 60 chapters) touch my heart AND make me cry.
This book is ALL about positive psychology. It's not university research, but there's an awful lot of university wisdom. It should be required reading for positive psychologists. This is how wisdom is woven together into a meaningful life.
Pausch explores, throughout the book the theme of acheiving your own childhood dreams, adult dreams, and enabling the dreams of others. He mentions early, how when he was a kid, when it came to the World book encyclopedia, "I didn't read every word, but I gave it a shot." One of his childhood dreams was to be a contributor, as an expert to the worldbook-- and eventually, it did happen. That made me think. I'm a quotationaholic, sort of like a bibliomaniac (which I also am) but for quotations. I usually leave a few quotation books in the bathroom. The quotes make perfect reading length material. I was delighted one day to have my son come up to me, holding the Book of Positive Quotations, informing me that one of my quotations was in it. That was one of those moments.
Pausch, an engineer, takes lessons from his life that he wants to pass on to his very young three children and his students. He's a man who has accomplished some impressive things in his life, so that lends credibility to what would otherwise be solid, wise advise.
I love his attitude towards "brick walls." When you reach a brick wall that seems unsurmountable and unpassable, he advises, "The brick walls are there for a reason. They're not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a c hance to show how badly we want something." Then he tells several stories illustrating how brick walls challenged him and how he overcame the challenges.
Coming from spending over 30 years in the world of biofeedback, I was pleased to see that Pausch believes, "In the end, educators best serve students by helping them be more self-reflective. THe only way any of us can improve... is if we develop a real ability to assess ourselves. If we can't accurately do that, how can we tell if we're getting better or worse?"
I love chapter 39, "Be the First Penguin." He writes that "experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. .... It's a phrase worth considering at every brick wall we encounter, and at every disappointment. It's also a reminder that failure is not just acceptable, it's often essential."
Pausch tells the story that how, for the "Building Virtual Worlds" course he taught at Carnegie Mellon, he created a "First Penguin Award. "It went to the team that took the biggest gamble in trying new ideas or new technology, while failing to achieve their stated goals. In essence, it was an award for 'glorious failure' and it celebrated out-of-the-box thinking and using imagination in a daring way.
"The other students came to understand: 'First Penguin' winners were losers who were definitely going somewhere.
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Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, more...)
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
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Thanks, Rob
I remember reading about the professor here, and watching the YouTube video. Very inspiring. The popularity of the video suggests our nation is truly hungry for inspiration, truth, encouragement and unconditional love, too. I'll read the book. Once I finish the eight I've started. by Kathlyn Stone (46 articles, 227 quicklinks, 27 diaries, 690 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Monday, Apr 21, 2008 at 8:13:28 PM  (0+)
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Reply: after 8
I squeezed this on in between a bunch of other ones. The chapters are very short, so it's also a good book to pick up and put down. by Rob Kall (952 articles, 4177 quicklinks, 374 diaries, 2087 comments [45 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Monday, Apr 21, 2008 at 8:47:58 PM (0+)
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THANK YOU!
Thanks, Rob, for this review, I am looking forward to reading the book. I've been very touched by his journey, and just a few days ago, sent him and his wife the following letter: Dear Jai and Randy, I was one of the lucky ones to see Randy’s “Last Lecture” video just days after it was posted, and I have been following your remarkable journey since. I thank you for sharing so much of your adventure with the world. My husband died in a plane crash when our daughter was five. We had no financial safety net. In fact, I lost the house and five businesses. Nevertheless, I discovered that the most important safety net is the human spirit, and my daughter and I danced through our rock-strewn path to find our way, turning stumbling blocks into stepping-stones. She is now 30, she put herself through med school, survived the trauma of last year at Virginia Tech, and will be a doctor in a year. I woke up this morning with a pressing desire to share a couple of thoughts with you, learned from my own journey. I have read your website, I know from my personal experience that you have plenty on your plates besides reading this, and I don’t expect nor want you to spend precious time crafting a response. Still I felt compelled to share these thoughts. I have heard Randy say on a couple of interviews that he believes that your daughter may be too young to remember much of her dad. Granted, my five-year old was much older when her dad died, but I want to share with you that not all the memories are the result of remembering actual events. Much more of the memories are from the re-telling of the stories, which become the family mythology. I made a little book of photos of my daughter and her dad, and often storytime was a rich recounting of fun times with her dad: the day they bundled up to play in the once-in-a-lifetime snowfall in Louisiana, the two of them on his motorbike, riding ponies or singing at the organ together. She even knows every detail about her amazing birth—when I went into labor, and the trip to the hospital, and the magic of her delivery—because of the photos and stories that I have told her through the years. She certainly wouldn’t have remembered that, otherwise! And we celebrate her dad's birthday every year - with a cake and a party when she was younger, and a lunch date when she got older. But always with the stories. So your daughter’s memories will not diminish, but grow, as time goes on, inspired by the photos and the stories of other family members. I believe that this is how the fabric of a rich family heritage is woven, whatever the length of the lifetimes of its members. The one thing I would have liked to have, and which brings me to the reason I am writing, is a recording of my husband reading aloud one of my daughter’s favorite books. I would have liked to sit with her on my lap at story time, turning the pages, as we both listened to her father speak the words. Even for grandkids, it would be lovely to have the voice of the grandfather they never knew, as part of their experience. And for the choice of a book, I would have picked something like “The Velveteen Rabbit”. And if I could have chosen more, they would have included another favorite, “Goodnight, Moon,” and all seven of C.S. Lewis’ "Chronicles of Narnia," a timeless read for any age. I wouldn’t have thought of this idea except that as my daughter got older, and I hired a babysitter when I had classes or meetings in the evenings, she wouldn’t go to sleep until I came home to read her a story. So, as a problem-solving measure, I recorded her favorite stories. Then the babysitter played the recording and turned the pages of the book, as my daughter drifted off to sleep, hearing my voice. (As a busy single mom, in order to save time, I made the recordings as I was actually reading the stories to her. The unexpected bonus was that her comments and our interactions are also on the tape.) On a similar note, when her grandmother died, I made my daughter a simple quilt from mom’s clothing. It was healing for me to make it, and healing for my daughter to have it. (They don’t call quilts “comforters” for nothing!”) You two are shining examples of how we are not our circumstances, and that we always have the choice of the attitude that we hold in any situation, perfectly illuminating my motto, which is a quote from Martha Washington: “I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances.” Thanks for the legacy that you have given to your children and to the world: the importance of focusing on the fun in every moment. I believe your remarkable examples of how you both choose to face the "hand you have been dealt," is serving to raise the consciousness of society, away from the perception of victimhood, and toward self-empowerment and joy. And the richness of that legacy cannot but have an extraordinary and beneficial effect on your children. by Meryl Ann Butler (70 articles, 82 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 721 comments [29 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Apr 22, 2008 at 4:10:48 AM (0+)
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