The last lecture...

Raye lent me this book to kill time when I was hospitalized. I glanced through it pretty quickly, stopped a couple of times for some self-reflections and finally managed to finish the book last night. Randy Pausch is seriously one cool guy and is really amazing. (I know he had since passed on, but to use 'was' seemed so... cruel.)

The book consisted of short anecdotes of his life and somehow, they all managed to be linked to wonderful philosophies that are often so obvious, yet, not followed. Bitter sweet stories that leave you with a smile, and possibly a heartache. Of course, there were a couple of stories that just slapped me on my face. Out of which, the one story that left me with the biggest impression was "Don't Complain, just work harder" (Chpt 32). I must learn to stop complaining, and just make do, or rather, make the best of everything. Reading this make me ashamed of all the whining I had about my ex-jobs, people and things in general. Life is pretty short, so why waste time bitching about things that make you feel lousy. Move on and things might just get better!

Well, being a cry baby, I could not help but teared when I read the last section of the book. He celebrated his wife's birthday for her in front of the whole audience during his very famous last lecture at Carnegie Mellon. When they hugged, she whispered "Please don't die" to him. That was a complete tearjerker... T_T It's not difficult to imagine how heartbreaking that was. Sigh, life is a cruel reality, isn't it?

In a nutshell, I love his outlook in life, his ideals and his personality. Great book that would leave you lotsa room for self-reflection!

A definite good read!