The Last Lecture-Randy Pausch

This week I am going to review Randy Paush’s book, the Last Lecture. The basic concept of it is Pausch has pancreatic cancer and is asked to give a speech about a professional topic. He ends up talking about life, love, and death. I honestly wouldnt have went out and bought this book but my mom got it for me for my birthday. At first I kind of thought it was sappy but as I continued through it he had some real gems of advice for people of any age.

His main focus is achieving your childhood dreams. He was lucky enough to achieve most of his and the ones he didnt made him a better person.  He goes through his life talking about his setbacks, achievements, and brick walls. The brick wallks actually really applies to my life right now because arent happy with my career choice but he says “brick wall are there to show us how bad we want it.”

He has a ton of great advice on raising kids, education, behaivor, and just about anything else you can imagine. Another great reason to read this book is because he doesnt pull any punches about death. Reading this reminded me of my grandpas demise and actually brought me to tears because of how honest he is.

This book has actually changed my thinking about life and death because of honest he is throughout the book.  At one point he mentions not worrying about what other think. And today I went out and burned a letter an ex wrote me telling me I was an ass an all this other junk. I dont care what she thinks or anyone else thinks.The only people I worry about are me and God.

Now there were 2 things that reading this book I saw as being contradictory. First he says that he is going to try to survive and you have to keep your head up and cant get down. At the end of the book he says that pancreatic cancer will take me then mentions two foundations he supports.  That sounded like a man surrendering.

The second thing I read was about child raising. He talks about how his parents never spent money of unnecessary things. Then when he talks about his kids growing up, he mentions all these cool trips that most kids would never imagine getting to take in a million years.

Overall this book is excellent and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good read. Its really short (just over 200 pages).  It doesnt really have chapters but the way it is broken down makes it very easy to read.