Dr. Randy Pausch – Dying with Dignity and Delight

My friend, Tom Glass, has a real knack for discovering inspiring stories and making his friends aware of them. He may have outdone himself this time. In the midst of my burning the midnight oil working on some time-critical searches for clients, I noticed that Tom had sent out an e-mail with a link to a video. Something told me to stop what I was doing take a break and watch the video. I would ask you to do the same. You will not be sorry.

This introduction, culled from an article I found on line, paints the picture of the video of Dr. Randy Pausch delivering his final lecture to his students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

By jobythebay, published Sep 23, 2007

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

A Dying Professor Gives the Lecture of His Life

I was watching the news on television last night and heard the newscaster saying that we would be watching a professor's last lecture.

On Tuesday, September 18, 2007 a computer science professor named Randy Pausch, Ph.D, gave a lecture. Dr. Pausch is regarded as an expert teacher of video games and virtual reality technology. He helped develop the software used at Carnegie Mellon, a well-know Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania University, called Alice. It allows people to create 3-D animations. This is being used by students around the world. The lecture was titled, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." http://cmu.edu/uls/journeys/

Oprah heard about the lecture and asked Dr. Pausch to reprise the lecture live for her audience. The following link will take you to that broadcast:

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw

As I watched, the first questions I asked myself were: “When was this show taped? How is he doing now? Is he still alive?”

I found the answers in Dr. Pausch’s Blog, which was updated today.

Randy Pausch Blog update page:

http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html

There is no need to gild the lily; Dr. Pausch has said all that needs to be said about milking all the joy possible out of every day we are given to spend here on earth. My two questions – to myself and to you – after the tearful inspiration of watching Dr. Pausch put life into perspective – are:

“What will you do today to experience joy for yourself?”

“What will you do today to give joy to others?”

What a gift Dr. Pausch has given to all of us – his extended class of students enrolled in the school of life.

Thank you Tom!

Enjoy!

Al