Inspiration

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The sad news of Dr. Randy Pausch’s passing, has touched many people who had an opportunity to learn about him and his famous last lecture before his death. I already made a brief farewell post, but great men are best remembered through their own words. These are 20 of what I consider to be great Randy Pausch motivational quotes.

1. Never underestimate the importance of having fun. I’m dying and I’m having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day, because there’s no other way to play it.
2. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
3. We don’t beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well.
4. It’s not about how to achieve your dreams, it’s all about leading your life. If you lead your life in a right way, karma will take care of itself. And dreams will come to you.
5. If I only had three words of advice, they would be, tell the truth. If I got three more words, I’d add, all the time.
6. The brick walls are there for a 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. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!
7. Be good at something. It makes you valuable. Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.
8. Better to fail spectacularly than do something mediocre.
9. Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
10. When there’s an elephant in the room introduce him.
11. Be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity.
12. Find the best in everybody. Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you. It might even take years, but people will show you their good side. Just keep waiting.
13. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself.
14. Don’t complain. Just work harder. That’s a picture of Jackie Robinson. It was in his contract not to complain, even when the fans spit on him.
15. Get a feedback loop and listen to it. Your feedback loop can be this dorky spreadsheet thing I did, or it can just be one great man who tells you what you need to hear. The hard part is the listening to it.
16. When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.
17. If you’re going to do anything that pioneering you will get those arrows in the back, and you just have to put up with it.
18. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You’ve got to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work.
19. I probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones that I did accomplish.
20. I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term.

If you haven’t done so already, watch the last lecture and read the book which provides a bit of background information to better understand the man and his story.

This morning a man closed his eyes forever. He died the death that everyone dies, like the other hundred people whose heart will stop beating by the time you’ve finished reading this post. But that man was Randy Pausch.

Upon the tragedy of learning of his future death months in advance, Randy didn’t allow the sword of Damocles hanging over his head to take the smile from his face. He had fun until the end, he truly lived until his last moment. In the process, with his Last Lecture, he managed to touch the lives of millions of people worldwide.

In that sense, he never died. He continues to live inside the hearts of those who were deeply inspired by his message of living life to the fullest, with joy. Randy is a continuos reminder of the importance of working hard to achieve your dreams, of not complaining about petty things, of having a positive outlook towards life.

I always wanted to get in touch with Randy and thank him for the many ways he ended up inspiring and changing my own life. But I never wrote to him, not even an email. It wouldn’t have been fair for me to take that time from his family, to read yet another thank you note amongst the thousands that he received.

Last night I started writing a post about the lessons I learned from Dr. Randy Pausch. I thought about it after reading a status update page that tragically mentioned he was no longer able to post updates, due to the advanced state of his pancreatic cancer. My post was going to be titled “The lessons I’ve learned from a dying man”.

That post, with an aptly renamed title, can wait. Instead this is my farewell. Goodbye Randy.