Playing the hand you're dealt

Published August 23, 2012

Stockton Sentinel

Stockton, Kansas

Today I finished reading the book “The Last Lecture,” by Randy Pausch. I started reading this book at the beginning of summer, but I found that, even though it’s a small book, it was not a quick read. There is too much to be pondered in Pausch’s writing to read it fast. Like a sweet cinnamon roll, it has to be savored, as if it’s the last cinnamon roll you will ever eat.

             

Randy Pausch, if you don’t know, was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He was an award-winning teacher and researcher, and worked with Adobe, Google, Electronic Arts (EA), and Walt Disney Imagineering, and pioneered the non-profit Alice project. (Alice is an innovative 3-D environment that teaches programming to young people via storytelling and interactive game-playing.) Randy lost his battle with pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008.

              

The inside cover summarizes the book this way: “A lot of professors give talks titled ‘The Last Lecture.’ Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same questions: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—‘Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams’—wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because ‘time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think’). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.”

             

If you haven’t read this book or watched the lecture, from the above description you may understand why it’s not a “quick read” kind of book. There’s just too much stuff between the covers. And you may understand why I’m overcome with many emotions.

             

Finishing the book now, in light of three tragic events that took the lives of three young men from our area in less than a week’s time, made Pausch’s thoughts even more real and contemplative. Finishing the book now, with a new school year upon us, made his views even more inspiring and meaningful.

             

My heart aches and my prayers linger for the families and friends of those in our community who lost a loved one in those three, separate tragedies. On the flip side, the excitement of a new school year and all its possibilities is pushing many households into overdrive. It’s happening in our house, too. No, I don’t have students in my house—just the principal, and he’s ready to “get after it,” as he says.

             

Randy Pausch said, “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” We don’t all get a warning or advanced notice of our final day in this life. Randy actually considered himself “lucky” because of his diagnosis; he knew he had to make the best of the short time he had left. But whether we know or not, every day we have is a gift, every moment a treasure. It’s up to each of us to play the cards we are dealt in the best way we know how, so that when the game is over, we can lay down a winning hand.