It's not unusual for retiring professors to give a last lecture. When Carnegie Mellon University's Randy Pausch gave his in 2008, he wasn't retiring. He was dying of cancer.
Today, his now famous lecture has 21 million views on YouTube. It is still inspiring many to follow Pausch's advice about what is important in life.
At the time, he was the father of three small children and he said in a USAToday interview, "I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children." From his lecture, Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, here are a few of his points about life:
* Never underestimate the importance of having fun. I'm dying and I'm having fun every day because there's no other way to play it.
* Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.
* No one is pure evil. Find the best in everybody. Wait long enough and people will surprise you.
* It's not about achieving your dreams but about living your life. If you live the right way, the dreams will come.
* The brick walls are there for a reason, not to keep us out. They are there to give us a chance to show how much we really want something.
* In an interview with amazon.com, Pausch says the thing he learned as he grew older was that you can't get anywhere without help. Ask yourself: What kind of person do people want to help? Then you'll know the answer to: What kind of person should I try to be?
* He learned from a football coach to be grateful when someone is making you work hard: When you are screwing up and no one is saying anything to you, that means they gave up.
* The secret of winning the stuffed animal on the midway, like most anything else, is sheer persistence. But it helps to have long arms and discretionary income.
