The Last Lecture

This book, by a Computer Science PHD named Randy Pausch is a little less theoretical than a lot of the books I read. He is in his late 40's and in the process of dying of pancreatic cancer. He married late, so has three small children, the oldest of which is 6.

Thanks to the modern world, one can follow his odyssey here, due to the wonders of technology.

I'm not going to try to summarize the book, it is short, easy to read and worth it. The lecture itself is out linked off the site, those of you with higher speed connections can look at that as well-- I haven't yet, but I'm sure I will and it will be worth the time spent.

The inside front cover has his version of one of my favorite quotes; " We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand". I'm not a card player, but the logic of playing the hand you are dealt in life as well as you can rather than complaining endlessly of the poor quality of your hand and the unfairness of some other guys hand has always appealed to me.

Is pancreatic cancer to a guy that seems as nice as this one an extremely unfair hand? That sure is how it feels, BUT, the amount of time spent making that judgment is completely useless. It solves nothing, doesn't improve your life any (in fact, it no doubt makes it worse), and it certainly doesn't help Randy or his family any.

It turns out that the chemo has kept him alive for longer than what was expected. When he was diagnosed, it was 3-6 months of decent health. He is well beyond that now, but the tumors seem to be growing and spreading, so his reprieve seems to be coming to an end.

He has certainly packed a good deal into his life to date and knows enough to be thankful for the days so far and for each day he gets to have. That attitude will give one way more hope than any political candidate, and will greatly increase the odds that you will be able to deal positively with the changes that come your way.