A lot of professors gives talk titled "The Last Lecture".
Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences cant help but mull the same questions: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer with only a few months left to live.
But the lecture he gave -- "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" -- wasn't about dying.
It was about LIVING.
What made me wanna cried my eyes out was he even brought adult diaper as a precaution when giving his talk to his students on the stage.
"We cannot change the cards we are dealt,
just how we play the hand."
--- Randy Pausch
A very touching real-story.
May you rest in peace.
P/S: Pausch learned that he had pancreatic cancer in September 2006, and in August 2007 he was given a terminal diagnosis: "3 to 6 months of good health left". He gave an upbeat lecture titled "The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" on September 18, 2007, at Carnegie Mellon. He died of complications from pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008. (Sources from Wikipedia)
