The Last Lecture
Photo by Jack Hamilton on Unsplash
You know those little libraries some people put outside their homes? Well, the last time I was in upstate New York at the family home in Hannawa Falls, I put my book into two different libraries. When I was up last week for our third annual trip for Thanksgiving, I was excited to check them to see if someone had taken it.
My excitement around the possibility of someone reading my book - one random stranger in a small town no one has heard of - shows my true purpose for publishing. While it would be great to make enough money from writing and speaking to be able to quit the other consulting I do - I didn’t publish to make money. I published to have the chance to positively influence someone’s life the way so many people have done for me. So, when I walked up to that little library, searched for my book, and saw that someone had chosen to read it - well, it filled me with joy.
As I was searching through, I happened upon a book that I had read years ago - The Last Lecture. The book is about Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon who had already been selected to give a hypothetical “last lecture", when he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Now, with only months to live, this lecture series that is usually just a chance to imagine you were giving a last lecture so you can impart your wisdom, this became Randy’s true last lecture he would ever give. After the lecture turned book, I cannot remember how it came to be in my hands when I was in college, but I remember reading it because it happened to be in my purse the afternoon I was admitted to the hospital.
I had just gotten back from a trip to Guatemala where were doing some humanitarian work in Guatemala City. With some unknown illness attacking my immune system, I laid in the hospital bed bored out of mind. This was before smart phones, so the only thing to do was read. My father, who was at my bedside, read most of the book to me. I don’t really remember how I felt about the book at the time; I don’t remember my reaction to it or doing anything specific afterwards. I don’t think I’ve really thought much about it since reading it in that hospital room. But as soon as I saw the title in that little library, the memories came flooding back and so I decided to take it home and reread it.
As I made my way to the end of chapter one, I learned the title the author chose for his last lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. I laughed when I read it wondering if this book had any influence over the direction I went in life. The Impossible Box, after all, is about achieving long forgotten dreams. It was back in college when I finally confessed out loud that I wanted to write a book. Of course, it wouldn’t be until years later when I actually started writing, because being inspired to follow your dreams and actually taking steps to achieve them are two different things.
I don’t know how much credit I can give Randy Pausch, as there have been many people and books who have influenced me toward the person I am today and the road I’m on to the person I’ll become, but he did say one thing that I still quote to this day even though I had long forgotten who said it…
“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
When we think about going after childhood dreams, there is so much involved that we have no control over. There are so many situations in life that come our way that we wish we could just discard: cancer, unemployment, natural disasters… We cannot control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond, and it was in response to a bad card I was dealt in 2018 - the sudden death of my brother - that made me start writing again. Response, after response, after response, got my little book published and into that little library. I am proud of not just the actions I took through good and bad hands, but I am proud of the mindset I maintained. It took years, but I didn't give up on my childhood dream.
How we play the hand isn't just the actions we take, but the mindset we have in the process. A fold can be giving up and quitting the game, or it can be a chance to rest, reset, and try again tomorrow.
