The Last Lecture Part 1

Somehow I stumbled upon a news article talking about this professor that gave "The Last Lecture", passing away on July 25. Well, I found the lecture on YouTube and it is over an hour. There was so much I wanted to talk about from it, that I have decided to break it down. This first part will cover the first 12 minutes of this lecture.




Randy Pausch gave this lecture called the last lecture and the name was changed to Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. He starts out explaining that he was diagnosed with cancer. He has such a great outlook on things that knowing now that he has passed, is very inspiring. He talks about his first couple dreams in great detail in these first 12 minutes.

The first is to achieve zero gravity. The quote that I took from this dream of his is "Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how bad we want things."
WOW! How many times have I/you had something that we wanted to do and as soon as we hit a brick wall...we gave up. I have, more times than I really want to admit. We all have dreams. We all have things we want to do. My own feelings of insecurity or that I just am not good enough to achieve them are very common brick walls that I have ran into. Also, I fall prey to the brick wall that others build. People telling me that I can't do it, or I haven't thought something through all the way or that I haven't thought of how it would impact my children. I guess the biggest dream that I let hit a brick wall is my sports bar. I made a business proposal, worked on bar design, menu, uniforms, advertising, everything. I was bound and determined that I would one day open up my bar. However, I was quickly reminded that I have a child (Isaiah wasn't born yet). Hours for owning a bar are not the best for raising a child. Secondly, was finance. Not only did I not have the money to start it, but the fact that most businesses lose money the first 3 years was a big scare for me. Also, my own insecurities...just because I would go to a bar like this, would others? Did I really know how to run and operate a sports bar and grill.
The thing is, I still have a desire to do this. But it really is a dream that I don't see becoming a reality. I see it as being on the other side of the "brick wall". Does that mean I don't want it bad enough? Maybe, or maybe it's just not the right time in my life right now. Maybe as things go better with my job and my children get older, all my what ifs and doubts will start disappearing and I will be able to climb over the brick wall.

His second dream that he talks about is playing for the NFL. Now most of you know that one of my dreams was to be the first female coach of the NFL (granted I would be thrown out the first game for unsportsmanlike behavior...but that is not part of this discussion). He talks about his football coach from little league and while he is talking, I had a very serious Aha moment....little light bulbs started going off in my head. He talks about a particular practice where the coach was really coming down on him. He was telling Professor Pausch how he was doing everything wrong. Afterwards, the assistant coach made a comment about how the head coach was riding him. The Assistant coach said..."that's a good thing because when you are screwing up and no one's saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up." This was really profound. I have spent the last couple months stressing about my new position and how everything I do is being scrutinized. It has really been very stressful. I have cried, I have thought about quitting, I have broken out in hives, and I have felt like the dumbest person in the world. And yet, I'm still there. And yet, my boss still calls me to tell me when I have screwed up, but he also i round about ways, tells me that I am doing good. I guess I need to look at things a little different when it comes to the criticism at my job. I realized tonight, that My Boss doesn't criticize me because he wants my job, maybe it really is because he knows my potential and he knows that the little careless mistakes that are made, are not who I am. Maybe (hopefully) it is to point out the little things that I miss so that if one day I have to show someone else, I will show them to Not make those mistakes. Who knows! But I guess until I know 100 % that I am perfect, I need to start looking at the criticism as a sign of faith in me and my potential.

The last thought from the first part of this is: "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted". Once again...WOW. Think about the times you failed. Or the times you didn't get what you wanted. Why didn't you get what you wanted? Did you learn something from it? My biggest lesson that I am learning lately is t hat I don't get what I want, because I am not asking for it. Or maybe I am not being specific in what I am asking for. Great, non important example of this is my sister in law and I at Christmas. Normally, I send a pretty vague Christmas/birthday list. Something like, clothes (size), candles, shower stuff, etc. My sister in law is very specific on what she asks for. She picks it out and sends all the details including where it can be bought, what color, and everything. So while she was getting a fancy stand up mixer, I was getting a hand held one, because I asked for a mixer. So lately I have learned. Instead of the normal bath stuff my mom sends me every year that I don't like and normally traded with my aunt, I received the stuff I really liked, because I asked for it. I held out at Christmas time, for the pattern of dishes I wanted instead of settling for the nice ones but not really what I wanted. But more importantly than gifts and stuff is relationships. I look back at my relationships that I wanted to work for some reason or another (some of them I can barely remember why I wanted them to work, but that's not important for this conversations). I wanted a marriage. I wanted a lifetime relationship. In the process of not getting that with these men I learned something from each of them. In the process of not getting what I wanted (a marriage) I gained experience. I am gaining the strength I need to realize what I do and don't want in a relationship. What I will and will not accept in a relationship. And I am reprioritizing the things I am looking for in a man. All because of experience.

So my thought for today for Last Lecture Part 1 are these:
1. what were your childhood dreams?
2. what is one brick wall that you allowed to stop you and why?
3. think about the person that criticizes you the most...what really are their intentions? is it because they have faith in you and know you can do better?
4. Did you gain experience, by not getting something you wanted?

I'm going to try to do this every night until we finish this lecture. It's over an hour long, so we will see!!

I hope that in some way this blog will help someone. It really opened my eyes tonight to some things I needed to see and like I said...I'm only 12 minutes into this..so we can go on this journey together.