First, a random thought:
“Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.” Sidney J. Harris
And now, the actual content:
You remember all that buzz about “The Last Lecture” last September?1 I do hope you watched it – it was well worth the time. It’s still available, too.
Randy Pausch, the lecturer, died yesterday. He was just 47, and leaves a wife and 3 small children. I know that he did that particular lecture because he knew that he had terminal cancer, but it’s still disappointing that such a wonderful man is gone far, far too soon.
A few quotations from the lecture:
- “…when you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are the ones telling you they still love you and care.”
- “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”
- “It’s not about how to achieve your dreams, it’s all about leading your life. If you lead your life in a right way, karma will take care of itself. And dreams will come to you.”
- [Quoting a CMU secretary]“This advice is good for the ladies: when it comes to men that are romantically interested in you, it’s really simple: just don’t listen to anything they have to say; pay attention to what they do.” (Cynthia’s note: good advice for men and women!)
- “If I only had three words of advice, they would be, Tell the Truth. If got three more words, I’d add, all the time.”
1 I found out today that the title of Randy’s lecture was actually “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.”
