Randy Pausch Lessons

After watching Randy Pausch’s “The Last Lecture”, it’s inspiring to see that even though at the brink of death Dr. Pausch was still able to focus the remainder of his life to living. Expressing it through a refined way of “mastery” on his own being. Throughout the video, Dr. Pausch shows us his life journey from the many dreams he had as a child to the various breakthroughs and downfalls he achieved later on. In speaking to us to deliver his final message to his children, we can see that the lessons he learned connects to those in the book ‘Mastery’ very much so like the lessons learned by some of the greats. Realizing the spark he had at a young age, revisiting that childhood spirit, and recapturing it as he worked his way to achieving his …show more content…
Pausch lecture, he speaks on two particular points in his life that have helped him to move on to his “second transformation” (Greene, 2012). The primary point was during his time on the little league football team. Even though it didn’t push him into becoming a professional football player he still learned something valuable. His coach having constantly pushed him during practice was instilling the value of persistence, although, like many adolescent teens, he may not have fully understood what he was trying to teach him at the time. It eventually clicked for him as he states in his speech “experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want” (Pausch, 2008). The experience he took away from this is that only those who care will push for you to do better when criticizing your downfalls. It is only when they stop pushing that they also stop caring. His secondary point was in his pursuit to become a Disney Imagineer. Having been rejected multiple times, it took him taking a different path to finally have the chance of working on an Imagineer team. Which, he describes this as overcoming the brick wall, a process that took him 15 years to finish. Just like Mozart, he had to undergo a “second transformation” (Greene, 2012) to overcome the wall that stood in his way. Whereas Mozart found himself rebelling against his father’s wishes, Dr. Pausch instead, took a secondary route that allowed him to develop skills in a different area much like Freddie …show more content…
Dr. Pausch saw a dream he wanted, obtaining it through venturing onward past many phase of life. He tried to fight his losing battle with death, and even though he was backed into a corner he chose to embrace it. Even showing that his “negative capability” was well established in all of the trials he faced. Keeping the rejections he received from Disney, as well as, doing everything he could to enjoy his life. We can see that he greatly used this tool to push on past what he could not control. As he said in his lecture, we “can’t control the hand we’re dealt, just how we play the