Book Review The LAST LECTURE by Randy Pausch

The Last Lecture

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.

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.

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