The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

You may remember that I did a blog on Tuesdays with Morrie a while back. This past week I got a chance to read another book along the same lines, The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow.

If you’ve not heard of Randy and his famous last lecture at Carnegie Mellon, you can find it on the links from The Last Lecture website.

Randy delivered the live version of The Last Lecture a month after getting final confirmation that he had only 6 months of good health left before his life would finally be consumed by the pancreatic cancer that was eating away at his body. I would have been tempted to pull the covers over my head, not address an audience of 400 people, but that’s exactly what Randy decided he needed to do.

The resulting lecture “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” had very little to do with cancer and death; rather it had a lot to do with how to live your life. It’s an interesting exercise in assessing whether the things you say matter the most, really do matter to you. It’s a hard lesson, but The Last Lecture gives you a chance to see if you are living with integrity. Meaning: are you living a life that is true to who you are and where you want to be. It’s a very stark reminder that you can only look forward to so many “tomorrows” no matter who you are.

This book does differ from Tuesdays with Morrie, in that Morrie was an older gentlemen, Randy was relatively young. Their insights and motives for having the books published are a little different, too. But the basic messages remain looking into the best ways to live your life from a perspective of one whose course on earth is almost over. Morrie addresses this through the need to find and cultivate love. Randy does this through finding and cultivating your dreams.

There were times when Randy was a little hard to relate to—He’s done a lot of amazing things in his short life time and I’m just a wimpy little housewife. I sometimes found myself with the impression that Randy had already packed so much living into his days that it really was okay for him to leave, despite the fact that he had three young children and a beautiful wife. If I died tomorrow I think my eulogy would be far different from Randy’s. Probably something about only burning dinner 1 out of 6 times. (Never mind I only cook dinner a couple of times a week.)

I’ve only achieved two of my childhood dreams but they definitely didn’t turn out the way I dreamed them. I became a published author, but sadly I publish in a genre that is only of use to maybe 1 in 25 members of a small subculture and probably only ever read by 1 in 100 of those who might appreciate it. I’m published, but I’m a very small fish. I also always wanted to be a mother. But my children have yet to rise up and call me blessed. My teenager did tell me I was wonderful the other day, but I suspect that was because she wanted me to go to the store to buy her a bottle of shampoo.

Randy, on the other hand, had great personal achievements and public contributions. Every one of them was based on an enthusiasm for what he was doing. I found myself feeling very inadequate at times; though I’m sure that wasn’t the message Randy wanted the reader to take away from his book.

Awesome achievements aside, I most appreciated his overall messages, like: people are more important than things. That was something I could certainly hang on to and pay a little more attention to as I’m being unappreciated in my own mediocrity. The Last Lecture is certainly a worthwhile read. If you’re looking for a quick but poignant read for a Sunday afternoon of reflection, The Last Lecture would certainly fit the bill.

Sadly, Randy lost his battle to pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008,

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Life is like Riding a Unicycle by Shirley Bahlmann

I’ve know Shirley Bahlmann for several years and have always found her to be one of the funnest (yes I know that isn’t a real word) grown-ups I’ve ever had the pleasure of counting as a friend. She loves happiness and sparklies. In fact, her whole personality just sparkles and makes you want to be near her just for the sheer joy she finds in life. So, a few years ago when we were enjoying a book promotion tour together, I wasn’t surprised to hear her announce her intentions to learn to ride a unicycle. In fact, I could totally see it! (And yes, I was a tiny bit jealous. I mean- a unicycle, how cool is that?)

Better yet, not only did Shirley want to learn to ride that unicycle; she wanted to use it as the basis of her next book. Oh, yeah. You can bet that was a book I was excited to get to read. Life is like Riding a Unicycle: Fun Ways to Keep Your Balance When Life Gets a Little Bumpy by Shirley Bahlmann is a fun little book that I recommend for anyone who has woken up with that weird little mid-life-shoulda-coulda-woulda-crisis tugging at the back of their brain. It’s full of stories from real-life people who have taken life by the hands and made the best of whatever their hopes and dreams could lead them to. It talks about raising children in your 40s selling your home to roam the country in an RV (a dream I’m still trying to convince my husband to give in to), learning to dance, exploring creative talents long ago left in the dust. You name it. This isn’t a book full of miraculous but unattainable stories, these are just everyday things that people have finally decided to stop putting of. Life is like Riding a Unicycle is about taking the bull by the horns and hanging on for dear life, but having the time of your life doing it!

I love the different stories, beginning with the first, “Do Lots of Things Badly” and ending with Shirley’s unicycle adventures. The book finishes with Shirley’s account of learning to ride a unicycle after the age of 40. It’s a fun and encouraging read. I love the fact that she lets you know how long it took her to learn, it’s spread out so that you can really see her progress (or lack of it) over time. That’s very encouraging for those of us that get a little impatient with our dreams sometimes. But I gotta say-- how many people can one person possibly be acquainted with that knows how to ride a unicycle? It seemed like Shirley found more than her fair share of people to glean advice and encouragement from. I think that’s just part of being Shirley though, that woman could find a friend in a wax museum. Still, I think I would have quit letting teenage boys on my unicycle it’s far to embarrassing to be shown up by them so often.

There is something for everyone in Life is like Riding a Unicycle, but the overall message is stated best in Shirley’s introduction.

“Sometimes you’ve just plain gotta do what you wanna do. The alternative is to live with regret, and living with regret takes a lot longer and hurts more than doing whatever it is you wanted to do in the first place.

Trust me on this. It’s true.”

That pretty much sums it up, but on a final note, Shirley also included the following quote from Mark Twain.

“Twenty Years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails, explore, dream, discover.”—Mark Twain.

Oh, yeah. This was definitely my kind of book. Thanks for the great read, Shirley!

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