Words of Wisdom: Randy Pausch, 'The Last Lecture'

I first heard about this around October last year, thanks to a friend who sent me the link, and I remember sitting in front of it and finding it absolutely wonderful. I sat and listened and watched and made inspirational notes in a beautiful notebook.

I am currently in the process of throwing away and dismembering lots of old notebooks (as I am about to move home/ country for a bit, in search of a new adventure; there's only so many notebooks you can take with you, or keep and store in someone else's garage, so I have made myself go through them and throw them away, shredding the odd page of handwritten wisdom. I don't need to keep them all. The Tidying Bible would tell you that it's actually better for you to throw away things like that than to hold on to them; conversely, storing piles and piles of information in your house, useful though they may seem, doesn't actually do anything good for your brain.)

So I am throwing out the notes I made on this, and I am finally getting round to sharing it with all the users of this blog:

There is a lecture series in America called the 'Last Lecture', where distinguished speakers are asked to deliver a lecture on the most important things they've learned. The idea is, if you had only one lecture left to give in your whole life, what would you like to teach people about?... For this particular speaker, Randy Pausch, the 'Last Lecture' was particularly meaningful: at the time of the lecture, he was dying of cancer.

He gives the most amazing advice on time management, positive thinking, and in general just having fun and getting on with it. (I cite a couple of inspirational quotes from some of his lectures at the end of a previous post.)

Here is a link to one of his talks to get you started; there are more online, including a fantastic talk on managing your time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Enjoy!