"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand" - Randy Pausch
Maybe you've heard of Randy Pausch - he's a 47 year old Carnegie Mellon Computer Science Professor and founder of the Alice software project. In September 2006, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and on September 18, 2007, after learning the cancer had spread, Randy gave his last lecture at Carnegie Mellon, titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams".
According to his Wikipedia entry, the talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk," i.e., "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?"
I've linked the video below where Randy discusses his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others and lessons learned. It's 76 minutes long and worth every single second of watching.
In addition to this video, maybe you caught the Diane Sawyer piece on ABC News last week. Also, Carnegie Mellon has put up a site on Randy's lecture here and Randy has just completed a book based on the lecture.
Randy is still alive and writing about his experience fighting pancreatic cancer here.
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