"If you had one last lecture to give before you died, what would it be?" That is how Randy Pausch started his last lecture, a speech called "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," while in fact that he was fighting terminal cancer. In this speech, he did not talk about cancer or death but how to live to the fullest. This lecture contains three parts, his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and how to achieve the goals of yours or others.
Pausch started this speech by talking about his own childhood dreams, such as being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, authoring an article in The World Book encyclopedia, being Captain Kirk, winning stuffed animals, and being a Disney imaginer. He achieved most of his dreams except for playing in the NFL and being Captain Kirk. However, Pausch's boyhood idol, Captain Kirk, came to see the cool stuff that he was working on. It is happy and satisfying to accomplish most of the childhood dreams. I was thinking about my childhood dreams; Nevertheless, the answers were unclear. I might think about eating a lot of delicious food, learning one skill, growing up quickly, flying in the sky, being a scientist and etc. I used to have a lot of childhood dreams. However, none of them left a deep impression on my own experiences growing up.
One of the most impressive parts for me of Pausch's speech is the explanation about the brick walls. Pausch says, "The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough, they're there to stop the other people." Those brick walls or adversities can be anything, physical or mental, that make your life not match your expectation. Pausch also motioned that the brick walls are used to "show our dedication". If you really want or finish something, then you will do anything to pass the brick walls and achieve those goals, in this speech, the childhood dreams. It makes me consider my failure and past goals. Did I really want to achieve that goal? Did I spend all my effort to reach them? I have complained about your misfortune when I fail at something. The truth for the failure may be simple, I did not ea...
