Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Randy Pausch (speaking of apparent barriers between you and your goals): "The wall is there for you to show how bad you want it." (From his "Last Lecture", [VIDEO] )

Thankyou, I'd lost sight of this a little. teaching someone how to deal with a type of situation rather than a specific one is always useful in the long run. If anyone else appreciates this type of thing then Randy Pauche's "Last Lecture" is very inspirational [VIDEO]

Welcome to the law of Diminishing returns. Your choices fundamentally boils down to the following: -Take the blue pill. Stay in wonderland. Pick a technology, any technology. Drive yourself into it deeper. The rabbit hole goes much, much further, than you can imagine. -Take the red pill, and wake up: the rabbit hole goes the other way, too. On first basis, you have the ever-exploding number of scientific disciplines ( [LINK] ). Even further, society isn't merely a collection of engineers, and scientist: other people have all kind of different jobs. Furthermore, they are equally convinced, that their field of choice was the right one; and from their own perspective each one of them was right. Since you're HN, you might have a particular interest towards this field we call "business". Now, this is not what people around you -who are called "managers" btw- do. A good working definition for engineers is: Business is the ability to actualize a job that needs to be done, on which you're retroactively hired (or fired) by society as a whole. Or, as PG put it: doing stuff what people wants. Regardless of how you choose, a good partition of it is going to be soul-searching. There are 2 pieces of media I'd strongly recommend for that: -Randy Pausch Last Lecture [ [VIDEO] ], and -wishcraft, which is a short book, available freely from [LINK] . On an ending note, I feel for you. Every time I've been down to this alley, I always always wished I'd have done it earlier. If anything, you shou

If you're looking for something different then check out The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. It's is an eye-opening book in a very nontraditional sense. You may remember Pausch as the computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who was told that he had but a few months left to live (cancer). This book doesn't stray from its topic: "What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance?" If you're looking for motivation and an "out of the box" approach to analyzing daily life then this is it. Here's the book: [LINK] Here's the famous speech: [VIDEO]

This reminds me of Randy Pausch's method of getting someone to sit down for lunch. [1] "And he asked a question. And I was like, I’m sorry did you say you were Tom Furness? And he said yes. I said, then I would love to answer your question, but first, will you have lunch with me tomorrow? And there’s a lot in that little moment. There’s a lot of humility, but also asking a person where he can’t possibly say no." Although, admittedly, that's after you got them to say a few words to you and you're in front of a large group of people. [1] [VIDEO] 19:40 Edit: For those who don't know, here's the setting of this talk: This talk is one in a series given at CMU called the "Last Lecture" series with the hypothetical setting of 'what if you had one last talk to give?'. Randy Pausch, a professor at CMU, didn't have to pretend. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and in August of 2007 (when he gave the talk) was told he had three to six months left to live. If you haven't seen it, watch the whole talk. It's really good.

The Last Lecture is an inspiring book - Randy Pausch was another great man that the technology community had lost and I recommend everyone to both watch the Last lecture and read the book. The video is viewable here: [VIDEO] (as embedded on the OP's submission)

You know what's interesting? The immediate follow up to that first message, by Richard Chimera, mentions Randy Pausch. Does anybody remember him? [VIDEO] Small world.

"Trying to capture as many future histories as possible" (keeping your options open) harmonizes well with Paul Graham's view on procrastination ( [LINK] ) and the tenet of "put off decisions as long as possible". UPDATE: Evidently several smart people have had this intuition. I just remembered who said, "Never make a decision until you have to" -- it was Randy Pausch in the "The Last Lecture" ( [VIDEO] ). And "delay commitment until the last responsible moment" is also an agile principle ( [LINK] ).

I was introduced to this recently and it has become one of my favourite talks. Maybe also of interest on the topic of doing important work, Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: [VIDEO]

I also try to enable the dreams of others, but this ultimately makes me happy, too. [ Taken from [VIDEO] ]

The late Dr. Randy Pausch, of Last Lecture fame, said that his rule was to archive all emails, no exceptions. [1] IIRC it was because he figured that if everyone saved all their emails, it would would provide future historians with a treasure trove of contemporaneous research material. From a legal perspective, purging emails can lead to accusations of "spoliation of evidence," [2] which in some circumstances can lead to the judge instructing the jury that the jurors can presume that what you destroyed was harmful to your case. You can argue that you didn't purge any relevant emails, but that becomes a he-said/she-said issue. [1] I believe it was in his Last Lecture at [VIDEO] , but it might have been his time-management lecture at [LINK] [2] [LINK]

Thanks for reminding me. The Last Lecture is good. Since it's about 9 years ago, some younger HN readers may have missed it: [VIDEO] Cancer sucks.

> Today unfortunately we have a culture of “you can’t, it’s hard, it’s not for you, other people do that.” "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. They’re there to stop the other people." [VIDEO]

If you haven't watched this, it will change your life. Even if you have, it's one of the few youtube videos that is worth a re-watch. The book is just as good if not better. [VIDEO] Spoiler: It is a former CS professor at Carnegie Mellon named Randy Pausch. He had terminal pancreatic cancer. This is a dying professor's last lecture. It is a father sharing life lessons for his kids when they are older to watch. Some relevant quotes: - “As you get older, you may find that 'enabling the dreams of others' thing is even more fun.” - “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” - “The key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have. ” - “Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.” - “People are more important than things.”

The late Randy Pausch, in his Last Lecture[1] at Carnegie Mellon University, offered up... well, a lot of great advice, but the piece that jumped into my mind was: "It’s very important to know when you’re in a pissing match. And it’s very important to get out of it as quickly as possible." This thing looks awfully like a pissing match, and it's not just with the one homeowner in Hollywood -- it's with every person that feels the same way. I would lay good money the cardinality of that set is not a small number. Doesn't matter whether or not it is a pissing match. It looks like one. Were I running the state, I'd rather spend my time and energy on doing things that would actually Get People To Wear Masks, as opposed to another round of Pissing Match: San Andreas. [1] [VIDEO]

Here's mine: 1. Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams [VIDEO] 2. Strange answers to the psychopath test | Jon Ronson [LINK] 3. The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology | Pranav Mistry [LINK] 4. Steve Jobs MIT Class: What he learnt after he was fired from Apple? [LINK] 5. Eric Liu: Why ordinary people need to understand power [LINK] 6. Peter Lynch 1994 Lecture [LINK]

Oh Boy! Life is a marathon, not a sprint. You are still young (revisit these words when you reach 32, 42, and 52). So, hear me out. You need to work on developing habits, habits of winning, winning every time, develop a process of learning and improving and trust the process. Ignore failures, you might look boring and unsuccessful to some people, but once your habits start to work, it can change your orbit. You’re not failing, boy. You are growing up and this is how life look like. If you read a lot of books/biographies, you will realize how some very successful people have had setbacks. Ignore these negative depressing whispers, and learn, read more. Most of us were in that spot before, do yourself a favor, and take some time to watch this talk "Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", Randy Pausch [VIDEO]

The Last Lecture was great. If you can, watch the lecture too [0]. Even beyond the literal message, Randy Pausch's outlook and delivery really elevated the story for me. [0]: [VIDEO]

Please watch these videos in the right order: 1 Please watch this video for why: [LINK] 2 Please watch this video for how: [LINK] 3 Please watch this video for what: [LINK] 4 Please watch this for when: [VIDEO] Final note: I believe in the good so much all the time, but it is hard to keep believing in the good all the time. Please watch this when you are having a hard time believing: [LINK] I hope you receive courage, wisdom, temperance and moderation. *Let´s connect on Linkedin. (You can message me anytime) Ron.

He died from pancreatic cancer. Anytime, I read someone dying from this particular cancer, I think of Randy Pausch and the Last Lecture. [VIDEO] HN discussion from 2008: [LINK] It’s really a shame no progress has been made in treating this cancer in the last 16 years.