Last Friday, I read an article in Time Magazine that mentioned Randy Pausch’s lecture on YouTube. Curious as to what it was about, I searched for it the first chance I got. After all, the last time I searched for a YouTube video mentioned in Time Magazine, I saw Young@Heart’s performance of Fix You, which really made me tear up. For those of you who don’t know about them yet, Young@Heart is a singing group composed of octogenarians, which covers contemporary pop tunes.

So I was optimistic about checking out who Randy Pausch is. He’s got to be interesting and big enough to be mentioned in Time Magazine. And he is – or at least, he is now. I don’t want to give a detailed biography, since it’s all in the Wikipedia article about him, but the reason why he’s so popular now is because of his Last Lecture. It seems that there’s a lecture series in Carnegie Mellon University, where he got his doctorate, called “Last Lectures,” wherein they invite professors to talk about what they would try to impart to the world if it was their last chance to talk. For the then 47-year old Randy Pausch, it was a particularly appropriate topic since he was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in August 2007 and has been given just 6 more months of good health. In September 2007, he gave his last lecture entitled, “REALLY ACHIEVING YOUR CHILDHOOD DREAMS.” It became a YouTube hit soon after.

It’s a 76-minute lecture, but I strongly advise you to watch it. You wouldn’t even notice the time; Randy Pausch is such an inspiring and highly entertaining speaker. It really made me think about my childhood dreams and what I’ve done to pursue them.

Here are some of my favorite thoughts from the lecture:

“Remember, the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.”

“When you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up.” (quoting his football assistant coach)

“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”

Here are the links to the YouTube video, the lecture transcript, and his personal website.

RANDY PAUSCH’S LAST LECTURE TRANSCRIPT

RANDY PAUSCH’S WEBSITE

Note: The picture is from www.cs.virginia.edu

Postscript: Randy Pausch died last July 25, and I pray that God will sustain his family.