Randy Pausch Reflection

“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.

I believe that one of the ultimate questions that all members of the human species asks is ‘How can I find happiness?’ and reflected in this question is a desire to find a happy, fulfilling, quality life. Many people try to find such happiness through their careers, material possessions, and all manner of other pursuits. What a large portion of these people do not realize is that happiness and the elements necessary to achieve a quality life may not come from place, position, or possession but from attitude. In both Gilgamesh by Stephen Mitchell and Sunny Chernobyl by Andrew Blackwell, the reader can see these ideas explored in great detail.

You would think a man dying of cancer would not be so happy and willing to spend the last few months of his life giving a lecture. But, Randy Pausch, who has 10 tumors in his liver, does not want people to pity him for having cancer. Rather, he wants to teach people how to follow their childhood dreams. Looking at the seven elements of communication we see how he is so effective in his last lecture.

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).

Additionally, it was stipulated in the text book that “[middle aged] adult attitude about death are often irrational. Logically, adults should work hard to change the society” (Berger, 2014, p. 766). According to psychosocial developmental theorist Erikson, Randy achieved his adulthood stage of generativity by working hard. “Adults need to care for the next generation, ether by raising their own children or by mentoring, teaching and helping others” (Berger, 2014, p. 632). Randy accomplished many of his dreams

1. In the novel, The Last Lecture, the main character Randy Pausch explains how he is able to change or grow depending on the situation in his life. He says “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” What he means by this is that a negative situation can be reversed into something positive depending on how you look at it. He also says “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.” This quote means that you will face many challenges in your life, but if you want something bad enough you can get it. A third quote that shows how Randy Pausch is able to grow or change is “If I work hard enough, there will be things I can do tomorrow that I can’t do today.” This quote shows that if you try as hard as you can for something, it can be done.

“Brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.” This was the mantra Randy Pausch lived by in his terminating life. In his book, which I learned the quote from, he talked about many challenges he overcame throughout his life. The largest obstacle I have had to overcome is the challenge of being a part of many extracurricular activities while maintaining above average grades in my rigorous schedule throughout the years.

In the book “The Pursuit of Happyness” author Chris Gardner writes a self-memoir. He discusses about the issues of fear and the uncertainties he

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

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl is filled to the brim with rhetorical devices from all three sections of the text. Particularly in his section about logotherapy, Frankl’s practice to find an individual’s meaning of life, he explores the three main meanings of life: accomplishment, love, and suffering. This area uses a plethora of comparison, such as parallelism and metaphor. Recurring themes are used to draw back to Frankl’s three life meanings, like word repetition and alliteration. Frankl’s use of rhetorical devices allows his audience to focus on their individual possibilities and incorporate his ideology into society.

Randy may have impacted the readers of his book, but what impacted him? How did he get over the challenges he faced? To summarize, I will show what Randy went through and what made him who he was from birth to death. It will also tell how he got over the obstacles along the way. Something may have impacted him, but he has also inspired many others with his anecdote, “The Last Lecture”. An Element from Randy’s life that stood out to me and made a significant effect on his life, was his parents and how they raised him. Generally when you love someone, you generally want them to know in a non-weird way. And when you pass while they are still alive, you want them to know that you still love them. “Need to know their parents love them. Their parents

I personally agree with this statement because I believe that certain things, just need to be left alone. Sometimes people try to fix things, because they don’t like the way they are going. But, sometimes it’s a good thing to let just let things go. If something, like a system, or anything for that matter isn’t broken, just leave it be. “It shouldn’t be defined as ‘not working’ in a product sense (like a bug in the software), but broken in that it no longer meets and exceeds the needs of your customers” (Vogels, 2017). It is almost like people try to reinvent the wheel, it’s a wheel, no matter how many times you try to fix it and it will still be just a wheel.

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.

Nowadays everyone tries to improve the quality of life by making tools and machines that helps us solve problems in a more efficient way. Therefore we attempt to improve machines and tools even if they are functional and efficient. “Perfection” is what humans have always wanted to achieve, however it is impossible in reality. In my opinion, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is true, but we should try to try and fix it to improve it and learn our lesson.

The world seems to be a dark and unforgiving place, but happiness is hidden within. It is found in a beautiful view, an uplifting song, or a compliment from a friend. According to the Ted Talk video, The Habits of Happiness, Matthieu Ricard claims that everyone “has a deep, profound desire for well-being or happiness”(Ricard 2:39). Ricard uses the three techniques of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to captivate and move his audience. With the use of metaphors, personal experiences, and even graphs Matthieu explained to his audience the full force and perception of the bendable word that is happiness. This Ted Talk dove into philosophical meaning on just how to achieve well-being, without having everything in the world.