The Last Lecture Articles 01: An Injured Lion Still Wants to Roar

If you were to die tomorrow, what wisdom do you, alone, truly have to offer? What makes your story unique? In your last moments, would you talk about dying or living? Would you skip sharing your college sweetheart’s last birthday together to give a final talk to the world?

Randy Pausch not only answered these questions. They energized him.

Engineers know that the best solutions come from the most limited resources.

Randy was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Virginia. He also worked at companies such as Adobe, Google, Electronic Arts (EA), and Walt Disney Imagineering. At forty-six years old, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given only months to live.

With limited time, he delivered one of the best talks ever.

Why?

He chose to talk about living. What made his story unique was that he lived out his childhood dreams. The wisdom he offered was found in his everyday actions. He chose to find joy in life and the good in people. That was the legacy he passed on to his college sweetheart and three kids.

“An injured lion still wants to roar” was his adage for giving the talk. He believed that if he told his story with passion, it might help others find a path to achieving their own dreams.

Over the course of fifty-three bike rides, he spoke with Jeffery Zaslow, a Wall Street Columnist, and fellow Carnegie Mellon alumnus. He helped turn those conversations into five million books sold. He was also present for the talk and has played a huge role in spreading Randy’s stories about honesty, integrity, and gratitude.

Despite a terminal diagnosis, Randy believed himself to be a lucky man, a testament to his unshaken optimism for life. In his own words, the reason he lived out his dreams was that he was taught all sorts of things by extraordinary people along the way.

Over the next couple of months, I will briefly discuss each chapter in “The Last Lecture.” I plan to highlight the wisdom from Randy’s stories and pass them on. By doing so, I hope to learn more about what it means to find joy in life and the good in people.