The Last Lecture Essay

While many obstacles get in the way of friendship, true friendship still lives, even in silence. In the book, The Chosen , By Chaim Potok, two boys, Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders, who are very religiously different and both raised in completely opposite ways, develops a deep friendship. Their friendship opens up their worldview to many other different viewpoints in life. The friendship between these two boys is one with great religious significance, starting off with destiny and Gods will. As Danny and Reuven’s Friendship develops, it teaches them to respond wisely to the values of the more complex and secular world. It also teaches the true value of friendship. Because Danny’s father, Reb

Topic: Compare and contrast the concepts of determinism, compatibilism, and libertarianism, as outlined in Chapter 4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each of these positions? Which one do you believe is the most likely to be correct? Why?

There is more to happiness than just synthesizing it. Even Dan Gilbert is very clear about this.

If I had made a list of my child hood dreams, I admit, it wouldn’t be very impressive. I never wanted to be a firefighter or a policeman. I never had the urge to be a millionaire, and I never even thought of being a G.I Joe or Army Man. If you could see my list, you would see only two words scribbled down in that chicken scratch hand writing of mine. But only one of those words would follow me out of that first grade class room and stick with me to this present day.

During this project, my class and I learned many examples of choices and consequences made by people throughout every day life. One specific character in the book, Erik Fisher, made choices that not only affected himself, but everyone around him negatively. Fortunately enough, as bad as these choices were; they did cause a few good outcomes.

Along a murky riverbed, long devoid of life; a lone roach scuttles along. It is often said that their kind are the only thing that can survive an apocalypse, apart from the ever changing shell of this rock hurdling through space and time. This creature, as resilient as it is fowl, may ever toil in peace; for it has no sentience or desires, and merely seeks to fulfill the simplest tasks, passed down and hard-coded into it’s DNA. Without want, pride, or a sense of being, it simply locates and consumes sustenance; in an ongoing cycle intermingled with periods of compulsive reproduction. A duty which has been the sole, simple undertaking of every member of it’s species for countless millenia. All around this creature, the land expands outward

As with playing the “What If” game (asking “what if” incessantly to explore each aspect of a situation), so did a chain of events occur that caused this relationship to form.

Happiness is a key to everybodys life. Even the most depressed man on earth has a little happiness deep down inside. Its what keeps us striving to fulfil our needs and wants on an everyday basis. There is not one kid who does not get excited over a dollar to spend at the candy shop. What about the feeling of getting a promotion at your job, or even finding the cure for cancer. Being happy is not just healthy, but it is also rewarding for each and every individual. We strive to find anything that will turn a bad day to a good one. Individuals will compromise to attain their happiness. You can not get what you want without giving something first.

The first common communication misbelief is that communication only exists to exchange information between two communicators. Though in some conversations the rapid exchange of information is essential, often times the relational content of a message is significantly more important that the content component. For instance, after a dog that I walked for six years passed away I asked the owner, “how are you feeling” and gave her a hug. I did not ask the question or hug her to gain useful information, but as an attempt to connect with the owner and to make her realize that I care. I wanted to show her that I was also mourning her deceased dog and that she was not alone.

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.

The Last Lecture is equally a telling of how Randy Pausch lived his life and a guide on how others should live theirs. Pausch was a professor at Carnegie Mellon and gave his last lecture after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. However, this lecture was not filled with weepy memories of his family or things he wished he could change. Instead, it was a recount of how he was able to achieve all of his childhood dreams and steps for anyone to do the same. Almost everything Randy says in his lecture are extremely quotable words to live by. He touches upon some of the most fundamental themes that everyone can understand, like the benefits of a positive attitude and how to overcome obstacles to achieve your dreams.

Essentially, seeking happiness is necessary in life. We often hope to find happiness from other people, other things around us and forget that we can create it by ourselves. The novel “The happiness project” by Gretchen Rubin is sufficient evidence. The author states, “I am happy – but I’m not as happy as I should be.”(13) Then she started a project within a year to change her life and seek for a happier life. By making a list of things she has to do in the next twelve months, the author have done many things which affects her “Vitality” (1), her “Marriage” (38), her “Leisure” (112), her “Friendship” (141),etc. positively so that she can achieve her goal, which is a life full filed of happiness as she dreamed before. We can also do that. We know that if everyone of us set a goal and live purposely, we are all happy. However, we can be happier if we know how to change ourselves on the right way. We can make ourselves happy by doing simple things in our everyday life.

The last person we are going to talk about is Randy. Randy is a man who had just gotten out of prison after serving 16 years for murder. Through the whole movie randy has been struggling with finding a job because everywhere he tries to go just looks at the fact that he served time for murder. During the movie Randy is always looking at the bright side of life and looking toward his family to get him going in the right direction, and he even has another child with his girlfriend. At the end of the film Randy is doing great and living up to his expectations of his parole.

The Article the end from the beginning re (de)finding Aboriginality written by Michael Dodson explores the notions on how Aboriginal people have been represented and perceived by the early settlers. Michael Dodson makes a critique on the language from previous historians. They Mention in the beginning that the Aboriginal people were seen as Noble savages from the prehistoric beasts, blood thirsty, cunning ferocious” that they even fell in the classification of blood types which gives an idea of an animal like classification, scientific based and based purely on Age and descent. ( Dodson, 2003: 19-20). Michael Dodson Argues the question as to how can the colonisers understand all the aspects of the indigenous people if they

When thinking of sexuality, hetero- and homosexuality are the first concepts that come to mind. Rather than considering the number of emotional and physical attachments that are also involved, it is a common belief that one's sexuality consists only of their sexual desires. Because society has put the homosexual umbrella over any individual who does not claim to be heterosexual, many people are unaware of the diverse lifestyles that are a part of a melting pot culture. As a result, it is oftentimes a subconscious act to make assumptions about these sub-sexualities. Rather than judging every individual by their personal actions, assumptions are often made on the basis of physical appearance and the collective actions of those belonging to