The Last Lecture Reflection

The Last Lecture Reflection

“If you had one last lecture to give before you died, what would it be?” That is how Randy Pausch started his last lecture, a speech called “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” while in fact that he was fighting a terminal cancer. In this speech, he did not talk about cancer or death, but how to live to the fullest. This lecture contains three parts, his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others and how to achieve the dreams of yours or others.

Pausch started this speech by talking about his own childhood dreams, such as being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, authoring an article in The World Book encyclopedia, being Captain Kirk, winning stuffed animals and being a Disney imaginer. He achieved most of his dreams except, playing in the NFL and being Captain Kirk. However, Pausch’s boyhood idol, Captain Kirk, came to see the cool stuffs that he is working on. It is happy and satisfied to accomplish most of the childhood dreams. I was thinking about my childhood dreams; Nevertheless, the answers were unclear. I might think about eating a lot of delicious food, learning one skill, growing up quickly, flying on the sky, being a scientist and etc. I used to have a lot of childhood dreams, however, none of them left deep impression from my own experiences growing up.

One of the most impressive parts for me of Pausch’s speech is the explanation about the brick walls. Pausch says, “The brick walls are there for 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.” Those brick walls or adversities can be anything, physical or mental, that make your life do not match your expectation. Pausch also motioned that the brick walls are used to “show our dedication”. If you really want or finish something, then you will do anything to pass the brick walls and achieve those goals, in this speech, the childhood dreams. It makes me consider about my failure past goals. Did I really want to achieve that goals? Did I spent all my effort to reach them? I have complained about your misfortune when I fail on something. The truth for the failure may be simple, that I did not eager those goals badly and did not work it with all my effort.

Pausch’s speech was really attractive, not only the interesting topics but also his humor personality. At the beginning of the speech, he says, “Although I’m going to die soon, I’m actually physically very strong. In fact, I’m probably physically stronger than most of the people in this audience.” After his sentence, he also did push-ups. It is hard for me to imagine this sentence was spoke by a man with cancer and who knows his end is coming before this speech. It is also tough for people to be happy and know the appropriate reaction to the patient, when a terminal cancer is mentioned. Pausch refused to talk about his disease during this speech, “If you have any herbal supplements or remedies, please stay away from me.” Audience laughed after this sentence, the humor definitely set them at ease.