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Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
A professor with months to live, doing push-ups on stage and talking about childhood dreams. This is how he chose to say goodbye.
Who it's for
Pausch addresses his own terminal diagnosis openly at the start and then chooses to talk about dreams and joy, modelling a way of facing mortality without being consumed by it.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Carnegie Mellon computer science professor Randy Pausch gave this lecture at the university on 18 September 2007, after learning that his pancreatic cancer was terminal. He opens by showing scans of the tumours in his liver and addressing his diagnosis directly, then talks about achieving childhood dreams, such as experiencing zero gravity on NASA's reduced-gravity aircraft.
Where to find it
YouTube, Carnegie Mellon University channel (free). Expanded into the bestselling book The Last Lecture.
Before you start
Heads up: Terminal cancer; a parent facing death.
Age: Ages 12+
Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
