Once I started the book, I couldn't put it down and it wasn't really, ironically enough, because of anything related to the cause that is so near and dear to my heart.
Rather, it was because of the lessons all of us should learn from it. Lessons that are especially important for anyone consider career or job options: getting to do your dream job, important skills like leadership and learning from your mistakes, cool jobs, how not to be a jerk, how to accomplish goals, enabling other's dreams, the important of being nice, why failure can be good, the value of handwritten thank you notes after an interview, and, of course, the most important one - how to really live your life. It's well worth reading and The Last Lecture can make a difference in your work as well as your life.
I saw the lecture on Youtube and it was inspirational. Can’t wait to read the book.
I first came across Randy Pausch like most of you. A friend sent a link to one of the versions of The Last Lecture. I watched the TV segment and was moved, so I wanted to check him out (I too am a scientist). Facts count. I found that the TV segment was less than 10% of the entire lecture, so I YouTubed it in and was moved more.
While much of the book is covered in the lecture, much of it is not. Both are full of nuggets of life. The one correction I would like to make is that Randy espouses thank you notes for things OTHER than interviews. I tried it when I was feeling pretty bad and someone made me laugh. “RC” isn’t noted for her sense of humor, so I was really taken back with the moment and felt it worthy of the minute it took to say thanks in writing. When she opened it, she cried. It was the first time in years that anyone had actually thanked her for anything.
If you’re a reader, GET THE BOOK and read it. I hate reading (too much like work) as a hobby, but always enjoy the details. I find the video delivery more to my liking (and you can buy it from CMU for under $10).
I am in full agreement that Randy is relaying some incredibly important lessons, but it’s been the way he designed the curriculum at CMU and UVa before that. Accomplishments are based on more than the details, it has to do with how we deal with people. It is how you live your life. It is how to understand and read other people (don’t listen to what they say, look at what they do).
Oh, I’m jealous! I asked for a copy for my birthday and it’s on backorder. I’ve got to wait until next month to read it.
Dear Ms. Doyle, thank you for sharing your family’s story and The Last Lecture. All my life I’ve loved reading about people, especially women, through autobiographies and biographies. It’s been a powerful thread since I was a child, and sustained me through many dark days. I’ve had breast cancer twice, and when it returned five years later it had become invasive. I read every book I could find. Dr. Bernie Siegel’s books were endlessly fascinating because he wrote about his real patients and analyzed their dreams. Gilda Radner’s It’s Always Something taught me how to laugh and live with cancer. Years later I read Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking one of the truly rare books about devastating personal loss. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen was a joy to read, even though I initially feared its subject. One of my favorite books became Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams. She records the death of her mother from cancer, and explores women, the nature of grieving, and renewal. I’ve learned through my explorations the best authors speak to the heart of surviving loss with grace. Reading about a disease doesn’t help. In Anatomy of an Illness Norman Cousins taught me death is not the greatest loss in life. He said the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we are still alive. I’m a 15 year survivor, and will forever carry the memory of reading these books and many others for they were literally life sustaining.
How inspiring Randy Pausch is! If you liked “The Last Lecture”, another fantastic memoir I just read and highly recommend is “My Stroke of Insight” by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Her TEDTalk video (ted.com) has been seen as many times as The Last Lecture I think, and Oprah did 4 shows on her book, so there are a lot of similarities. In My Stroke of Insight, there’s a happy ending though. It’s an incredible story! I hear they’re making it into a movie.