Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University is dying of pancreatic cancer. He has 2-5 months to live.
He was asked to give a last lecture – and a packed hall experiences something profound: A man who is happy in the face of death.
As he says at the beginning:
“If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.”
He also told people not to pity him:
“I am in phenomenally good health right now; it’s the greatest cognitive dissonance you will ever see — the fact is, I’m in better shape than most of you,” he said.
And then, to the appreciative laughs and applause of his audience, Dr. Pausch dropped to the stage floor and did a set of pushups.
“So anyone who wants to cry or pity me can come down here and do a few of those, and then you may pity me,” he said.
From this article.
The best line of the day:
“If you have any herbal supplements or remedies – stay away from me!”
Here’s a short five minute version with just a few highlights:
Click here to see the whole lecture – it’s easily the most inspiring 90 minutes I’ve ever spent.
My favorite line (which has become my myspace headline:
“If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.”
Not many people in this world seem to make ‘living your life the right way’ their priority.
Saw this last week and was blown away. TRULY INSPIRING. What courage that man has!
I watched the clip, then clicked the link and watched the whole video, over an hour. Its now 2AM where I am. But I was blown away. That man is a true hero, forget celebrities, he is an inspiration and a hero.
What a man, and thank you so much for sharing this video, it has helped me so much already – I am sure to share it and watch it again soon.
Thanks
Glad you liked it. I was totally blown away myself. And my girlfriend was crying :o)
It’s sad, it’s beautiful but mostly it’s really, really awe-inspiring.
Great speech, well worth watching the whole thing. It’s been getting a lot of attention both in the mainstream media and online:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/PersonOfWeek/story?id=3633945&page=1
Favorite quote;
“Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls aren’t there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show us how badly we want things.”
It’s inspirational to watch someone push foreward in the face of death but its even more encouraging to see the possibility of death removed all together to where the inevitable ceases to be the outcome. Now that is something that is awesome to behold.
Thanks for mentioning him. He deservedly received a lot of attention from the U.S. media. I even found the website where he kept everyone informed when he went through his attempts to get some remission from the cancer. There was one quote there that just blew me away.