alexpgp | Randy Pausch, RIP

I first heard of Randy Pausch in connection with his giving a "last lecture" at Carnegie Mellon - a fairly common phenomenen in the academic world, generally speaking, where professors hold forth on what is of greatest importance to them, as if it were their last opportunity to communicate with an audience - with the ironic twist that, in Pausch's case, his might well have been such a last opportunity, as his doctors had predicted he had three months left to live before the pancreatic cancer that had spread to his liver killed him. (In the end, he lived longer than the doctors had guessed. Good on him!)

When I heard of it, I downloaded that lecture, and was imspired, and I later saw him on an episode of Oprah, and was inspired again, and then I read his book and kept trying to remind myself of the truth of his observation that none of us know how much time we have on this earth, and that we must make the most of that time, while we can (and I'm certain he wasn't talking about to-do lists and work productivity).

Right now, all the issues in my life seem pretty... petty. The key question is: Can I profit from his example and focus my attention on making the most of time I have left? Can I keep the flame of inspiration burning?

Cheers...