Wednesday, October 24, 2007

A New Take on Writing Your Own Obituary

Many of us have taken at least one training class or self-improvement seminar where the leader asks you to write your own obituary and then read it and see if you are leading your life in the right direction so that you are remembered for what you love or what you do well. It is sort of an exercise where you look at what you have done so far and what you think people would say about you. It works pretty well if you do it honestly, although like most activities of this nature, you need to take it home with you and apply the lesson learned every single day. That is a difficult thing to do, unless the lesson learned stimulates you to make a major change or two in your life.

A few days ago, I got home from work and turned on the last half of the Oprah Winfrey show and found a very inspiring new take on this type of activity. A Carnegie Mellon professor talks about the "last lecture". If we could all face our mortality so impressively, the world would be a much better place. Watch this video and see if you aren't as challenged as I was to meet his level of humanity. "There's an academic tradition called the 'Last Lecture.' Hypothetically, if you knew you were going to die and you had one last lecture, what would you say to your students?" Randy says. "Well, for me, there's an elephant in the room. And the elephant in the room, for me, it wasn't hypothetical."
For some reason the link above does not seem to be working. The original video not edited for TV can be found doing a Google video search with the words "last lecture of Randy Pausch" There are several versions with longer introductions so you need to search through them for the thumbnail with his picture. The Winfrey program video can be found using the search
"Randy Pausch reprising his "Last Lecture..."

8 comments:

  1. Wasn't that man WONDERFUL? I called my brother and told him to watch it. He really needs an attitude adjustment...and hopefully that man gave it to him. THen YESTERDAY they were talking about TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE, and how uplifting that book is. Guess I will have to get it!

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  2. Mary Lou, I have read and re-read that book. It is also a good shot in the arm. These guys raise the bar so high for the rest of us.

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  3. i am so glad i recorded the show so my husband can see it over the weekend. it was a remarkable show, such important information for the heart and the head.

    i am always so impressed by people who take advantage of their time left to do the important work, share the important moments, make the efforts which will be especially meaningful to the family members being left behind. i wonder if my own sadness at leaving would overwhelm me to the degree that much of my time would be spent in such depression and fear that i would be unable to do much else. i hope not, but i wonder.

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  4. Not sure why but I couldn't click on any link. Was I supposed to?

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  5. Anonymous2:05 PM

    Dear Weary..the link is the quoted text, but if it didn't come up for you you can watch the LONGER lecture as the TV version from Oprah doesn't seem to work as well. Do a google video search and type The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch. You should get his video.

    Tabor

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  6. I talk to myself a lot. Is this the same?

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  7. Anonymous7:13 AM

    Hoss, this should be so simple...not.
    Tabor

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  8. Wow. I just came from viewing the man's lecture on a youtube.com clip.
    Amazing stability, he has. Not sure I could be quite so brave or so noble.

    Thanks for sharing this video, Tabor.

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Take your time...take a deep breath...then hit me with your best shot.