rofessor Randy Pausch of Carnegie Mellon-University gives new meaning to the expression “Take the bull by the horns”.  If I were looking for a hero in life—sometime to represent the will to live in spite of it all—he would no doubt be that person.  One of his memorable sayings is that while we have no control over the hand of cards that we are dealt, how we play that hand is up to us.  I encourage everyone to listen to his lectures which have been posted on YouTube.

In 2006, he learnt that he has a most deadly illness, namely pancreatic cancer.  A year later, 18 September 2007, he gave his final lecture at Carnegie-Mellon University to a packed audience.  Breathtaking courage, grace, and majesty characterized the lecture—to say nothing of a dignity that testified to the greatness of the human will.  Insofar as it is possible for a human being to stare death in the face and say “While you may destroy my body, you may not touch soul,” Professor Pausch did exactly that.  He would seem to have no fear of dying; and I shall conclude this essay by proffering an explanation for why that might be so. 

For those who came to cry and to show their pity for him, no doubt they were sorely disappointed.  For Professor Pausch’s final lecture had nothing to do with garnering pity and sympathy from those in the audience.  Rather, the lecture had everything to do with how to live well.  Far from being in denial, as some might suppose, Pausch is profoundly and poignantly aware of the reality of illness.

Ostensibly, Randy Pausch’s lecture was about his childhood dreams.  And this already tells us something exceedingly profound about the man, to with the following: He had lived well and he knew it.  This was not so much a boast on his part.  Not at all.  Rather, it was an expression of a very deep and abiding form of self-knowledge on his part—the sort of self-knowledge that can perhaps prevail even against the gates of hell. 

So while the lecture was incredibly amusing, the real meaning of the lecture was absolutely riveting.  What he said might seem to be just so much commonsense.  But in a world in which people think that they have a right to succeed his message warrants repeating. 

Professor Pausch made it unequivocally clear that anyone who wants to succeed at a goal must be prepared to pursue that goal even when the going gets rough and so many barriers stand in the way.  Indeed, he puts the point this way: the barriers serve to indicate just how important achieving the goal really is to us.  If all it takes to dissuade us is a single obstacle—be it an inconvenience or a less than enthusiastic welcome, then it is doubtful that we really wanted to achieve that goal in the first place. 

In fact, it can be plausibly argued that the knowledge that we have actually achieved precisely the goal that we wanted to achieve comes in part from the reality that we pursued that goal even when we were faced with obstacles.  After all, I might accept any number of things that are simply handed to me.  Accordingly, my having them is not thereby a sign of my truly wanting them.  But what I freely pursue with all my heart are surely those things that I really want. 

Death is a great equalizer.  When given the time, such as a few months, to see that death is irrevocably on its way, all individuals are forced to ask whether they did their best in life.  For the future has been foreclosed; and all that remains is that of reviewing the past. 

From the very outset, Randy Pausch makes it very clear that he had a marvelous upbringing and a most wonderful childhood.  And it is obvious that he is a very smart fellow.  But as I listened to various aspects of his lecture, there are two messages that come through loudly and clearly.  I have already indicated one of them: Anyone who wants something has got to be phenomenally creative at getting it. 

The other message is that nothing underwrites one’s sense of self-esteem like having a history of being creative in successfully pursuing one’s goals.  To be sure, praise is wonderful.  It is even necessary.  However, praise unaccompanied by the relevant experiences leaves one more empty-handed than not. 

Now, here is the final and most seminal lesson that I took from Professor Randy Pausch’s lecture and the manner in which he presented it.  I should preface my remarks by saying that I do not know him at all.  The only thing that I have to go on is what I have seen on YouTube and various reports on the news. 

It is striking in every conceivable way that Randy Pausch shows no fear at all of dying.  This claim is not to be confused with the quite different claim that he is indifferent to dying.  There is no evidence of that at all.  I should think it obvious to anyone that the man wants to live. 

My explanation for why Randy Pausch has no fear of dying is simply that for the most part he has no significant regrets or exceedingly few of them.  That is, he has for the most part courageously pursued his calling in a morally noble way.  This is all that anyone, including God, could ask of anyone. 

To be sure, Pausch wants to live a long life; and it undoubtedly pains him that this will not be so, especially since he will leave behind a wife and three children.  This pain, though, is not the pain that comes from having played poorly the hand that one had been dealt.  It is not the pain of regret that is tied to having used poorly the talents that God has given one.  It is not the pain that comes from having wronged another.  Nor, in particular, is it the pain that comes from not having found enormous meaning in life.  It is, instead, the very deep pain of knowing that one will not be there for one’s loved ones.  Unless one’s premature death is tied to wrongful behavior on one’s part, such a death cannot be a source of genuine regret. 

With a premature death, there is always the issue of having been shortchanged.  Those who have lived very meaningful lives, though, rarely look at it that way.  This is because the extraordinary contentment that one has with what one has done thus far is a marvelous buffer against the feeling of having been shortchanged.  After all, no one gets to do everything. 

The heroes of life are not those who have surmounted no obstacles at all and lived to tell us about it.  Rather, they are those whose life casts a very long shadow because they majestically beat the odds in overcoming the obstacles that were in their way.  Far too many suppose that equality is tantamount to a guarantee of success.  Randy Pausch’s life bears witness to the truth that equality at its best is about both freedom and what each individual does with that freedom. 

Randy Pausch is not going to live as long as he would like to live.  What is beyond question, though, is that he lived long enough to make it unequivocally clear to all, including himself, that his life was a meaningful one.  And that, alas, is a victory of which not even death can ever deprive him.  That, most assuredly, is self-knowledge at its best.  That was the real lesson of Randy Pausch's lecture. 

Insofar as the saying “Rest in peace” is a meaningful one, it must certainly turn upon the truth that one’s life was unequivocally a meaningful one.  Randy Pausch faces death with one of the greatest gifts that a person can give to herself or himself, namely that the unshakable knowledge that his life was a meaningful.  And it is that very gift that he gives to his family and friends—nay, even to a stranger like me.  Amen.