Randy Pausch

It is inevitable that we will all die it is a fact that everyone must come to terms with. There comes a time in everyone’s life that they must face death; a friend’s tragic accident, a family member’s passing or their own battles with diseases. When faced with the idea of death people will act in different ways some may find it therapeutic to apologize for the negative they have done, some may want to spend time with loved ones to ease the future pain, and others may decide that their life was not what they believed. The story Death Constant Beyond Love tells us about a man named Senator Sanchez who is living a happy life with his wife and five kids. That is until he is told by doctors that he only has a short time to live. Death is

“Hypothetically, if you knew you were going to die and you had one last lecture, what would you say to your students?” That is how Professor Randy Pausch, from Carnegie Mellon, began his last lecture, a speech entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” while in fact he was dying of Pancreatic Cancer. He knew he only had months left to live and put together this last lecture to read to his students. His lecture focuses in on points such as the importance of: making sincere apologies, not whining, being gracious and being humble. To stress his thoughts and views on life and following one’s dreams, Randy Pausch used a great amount of repetition, metaphors, allusion, humor, ethos, and pathos in his last lecture.

In Randy Pausch 's "Last Lecture," Randy discusses how he achieved all of his childhood dreams throughout his life and how he helped others achieve their dreams. Often times, childhood dreams are forgotten due to life stressors, other opportunities and interests that come along and, ultimately, believing that those childhood dreams are unachievable. However, this was not the case for Randy Pausch. Randy created a list of things that he desired to experience throughout his lifetime, and through persistency, acceptance and some modification, he was able to complete his list. Similar to many children 's "being an astronaut" dream, Randy had a couple dreams that seemed impossible. These seemingly impossible dreams on Randy 's list included: "being in zero gravity," "playing in the NFL," and "being Captain Kirk." While Randy never received the opportunity to play football for the NFL, his understanding and lessons learned from his football experiences made up for this shortcoming. Nonetheless, Randy was able to conquer all of his other dreams. With each dream Randy discusses, he explains each "brick wall" he hit along his way and what he did to get around these walls.

The lecture has affected me personally by letting me learn from some of Pausch’s past experiences. Pausch says, “The inspiration, and the permission to dream is huge.” This quote made me learn that people need to have the ability to think of what kind of dreams they want to inspire to

He told me a story of a friend he had who had cancer and she made the choice to stop the chemotherapy. Her arms had scabs and she decided enough was enough. She knew she wasn’t going to get better. She talked about death as if she were going to a party. He described how she appeared to be at peace because she lived a fulfilling life. Mr. E felt that she encouraged and motivated him more than he to her.Mr. E felt that the greatest joys of getting older were family and seeing it grow. He also felt that being loved and having others think highly of you were great achievements.Looking back on his life Mr. E felt that the only thing he could have done differently was to be more patient, smarter, more humane and not make as many mistakes. “You look back and think that you were not able to see things that are obvious” (E. Privacy, personal communication, October 10, 2012).

In the novel, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the theme of growing up is prevalent throughout the book. Throughout the novel, a young mexican girl named Esperanza goes through experiences as she matures that involve her friends, society, dangers that expose her to the outside world and help her to realize what the real world is like.

A seminar series titled “The Last Lecture” took place at Carnegie Mellon University. Professors were prompted to deliver lectures as if it was their last, while containing a “message of a lifetime”. Professor Randy Pausch delivered his speech titled “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” as a part of this seminar on September 18th, 2007, a time in which had just been given life-threatening news. It had recently been estimated by doctors that this was the last three to six months of his life. Instead of speaking as if he was hypothetically dying like his fellow professors, Pausch was in an extremely ironic situation, as for in his case he really was dying, of pancreatic

The United States was founded on a dream. A dream where we would could find our own land and be free from the tyranny of the British government. This dream was freedom. The freedom to become a Fortune 500 CEO that was born in the Southside of Chicago. The freedom to escape. The freedom to be who you wanted to be without anyone holding you back. Even the freedom to escape society and never turn back. The American Dream is basically just freedom. The ability to do whatever or achieve whatever you desire. This American Dream is not the same for everyone. It is unique to each person just as it was for Chris McCandless. In the book, Into the Wild, Chris McCandless goes on a journey to escape society and survive alone

Interpreted in multiple ways and forms, a quintessential aspiration has been the blueprint for Americans when engaging in perfection in politics, economics, and society. This “American Dream”, depicted by Jim Cullen, is a Puritan-inspired strive for opportunity presenting itself as an universal standard that constitutes to ultimate success. The reality of this Dream is a flawed repetition of a continuous pursuit of happiness, where one bleeds and sacrifices to be “happy”, and the constant modification of a new value and faith that resonates within each society introduced. The variation of this dream is communicated through the setting of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, where wealth, faith, and happiness is never satisfied in the three core locations of the plot. With the longevity of this dream continuing to create insecurities and unease today, the two elements from Cullen’s interpretation of the American Dream that resonates within the dynamic setting of the Fitzgerald classic are the incompatible rendering of new faith/worship in different environments and the unstoppable pursuit of happiness, revealing a dissatisfaction with the dream.

Part One: In the documentary "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande talks about the death of patients and how it 's a surprise to a large amount of the patients. He also explains the fear in the medical field, and as a doctor your suppose to help people and cure them, that you 're supposed to give them a better shot and if it later doesn 't go they way you expected,the doctors start to tell themselves what went wrong or what happen everything was going so well. Gawande talks about how he wants to learn more about how to communicate with patients and telling them that they have a certain weeks, days or months left. For example, He talks about one of his patients that he had, her name was Sarah and had stage 4 lung cancer was young and just had a

The American Dream is steadily changing as time goes on and some say this is a bad thing. As different generations come about the dream changes with the people. As stated by Dan Kadlec in the article “Millennials Put Their Surprising Stamp on the American Dream” the American dream is now seen as having control over your daily life. Today 's generation has seen some of the main aspects of the original American Dream fail greatly so they have made up a new dream. With the things Millennials have seen change and go wrong they only believe that they can achieve a day to day lifestyle, but should this really be the case? In another article named “The Hourglass Society” it’s stated by Stewart Lansley that the middle class is going backwards. The idea of the ‘hourglass’ is that there are large amounts of people on the top and the bottom, but not many at all in the middle representing the middle class. This article also states that the American Dream is now only a myth and this generation only has a “fear of failing”. Many say the American Dream is dead but is the dream really dead or are people too afraid of failure? Millennials of today have seen so many bad things happen to their parents that they just settle and this shouldn’t be the case. The American Dream is only going to die if we let it happen.

Nowadays, a large number of people migrate to the United States to work and achieve the American Dream. According to the Article “What is the American Dream?” by Kimberly Amadeo, “The American Dream was first publicly defined in 1931 by James Truslow Adams in Epic of America. Adam’s often-repeated quote is, ‘The American Dream is that dream of land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.’” There are many people that can have different perspectives when it comes to the topic of the American dream. Even though many people assume the American Dream is dead, it is a very controversial topic. The American Dream may have many different points of views, but it really does exist, after all, it takes an ambitious person to strive for success through hard work, dedication and determination.

The Last Lecture began as a good-bye speech, made by Randy Pausch, a 47 year old professor diagnosed with terminal cancer. His speech at Carnegie Melon University became an Internet phenomenon. It has also been published as a book. I really thoroughly enjoyed his Last Lecture speech. He had a lot of good talking points and brought up some new perspectives, or ways of looking at life situations that got me thinking. He talked a lot about his dreams when he was a child and was very humorous and inspirational throughout his speech. He also had a lot of quotes that I really enjoyed and they are what I want to focus on.

Throughout the entirety of his memoir, Randy Pausch, a man dying of pancreatic cancer, is extremely upbeat and positive. He never pretends that his illness isn’t there, but also never dwells on the fact that it is. His doctor sums this attitude up perfectly by calling him “his poster boy for ‘the healthy balance between optimism and realism’ ” (Pausch 183). Being able to have a positive attitude is the most prominent and, to me, the most important lesson that The Last Lecture teaches. Randy’s understanding of optimism vs. pessimism comes simply from the childhood story, Winnie the Pooh: ”Each of us must decide: Am I a fun-loving Tigger or am I a sad-sack Eeyore?” (Pausch 180). Randy is clearly a Tigger, and I can very easily identify with that part of him. I am often too optimistic, to the point where I can be perceived as slightly obnoxious. But I’ve always lived by the “fake it ‘till you make it” idiom, meaning that when I truly feel bad about a situation I’m in, I can make myself feel better just by acting like things are okay. This doesn’t mean I am blind to real problems, I just do what I can to make them easier to deal with. I believe that Randy had similar beliefs regarding his cancer, as his “...personal take on optimism is that as a mental state, it can enable you to do tangible things to improve your physical state” (Pausch 183). All of the other ideals that Dr. Pausch lived by are important, but I think that his positivity is truly what enabled him to achieve his dreams and live a full

Our society finds it difficult to talk about dying and euphemisms are the norm. It is typical for both doctors and patients to be hesitant to initiate a discussion on dying. Focus instead is often more often placed on interventions and actions for managing symptoms. This avoidance can leave patients and their families unprepared for the inevitable death. (Schapira, 2010) It also often results in requests for therapies which may be excessive, costly and even painful in the hopes for a cure. One study demonstrates that when patients are aware that they are terminally ill, the majority are able to reach a state of peacefulness and also exhibit lower levels of distress. (Ray, Block, Friedlander, Zhang, Maciejewski & Prigerson, 2006) It is also important that family members are willing to discuss end-of-life options with their loved ones. According to elderly patients, they are most often the ones who initiate these conversations with their