Thursday, August 14, 2008

A Celebration of Life

I was watching this special on ABC.com about Randy Pausch and this book he wrote (and lecture he gave) called The Last Lecture: A Celebration of Life. He said a lot of really interesting things that I will have to think about and really take to heart. Things about how to live your life. How you should live your life already having done the things that are on your "bucket list."

Here is a man who has a wonderful life, career, family and then he gets pancreatic cancer. He is told he will die, and yet he finds the strength to be happy, and to live life to the fullest. Instead of sitting around moping and saying "this is unfair" he accepts it and tries to do what he can to enjoy his life and make it fuller. He sees himself as a "Tigger" and not as an "Eeyore."

He said that the thing that makes him sad and emotional is not that he won't be there to see his kids grow up, but that they won't have him around. Thinking about it, that is really true. He used the analogy of somone pushing his family off a cliff and not letting him be there to catch them. I became a little familiar with things that he said, during my Positive Psychology class this last semester, but it wasn't until I watched this special that I actually paid much attention to it. I guess I was in the right place for the message.

I think we could all learn something from his message...

1 comment:

Angela said...

I saw that on Oprah a little while ago. He was very inspiring. I like the part about worrying about not being able to catch his family. Isn't that the scariest part?? I know we have talked this talk before.. so I won't go on you know what I am going to say...