In the Cue section of today’s (August 5th) Journal Sentinel, there was an article entitled "Words of wisdom" about a Carnegie Mellon professor named Randy Pausch who delivered “The Last Lecture,” a speech he wrote last September after he had been diagnosed with cancer and didn’t have long to live. He just died on July 25th.
Last fall someone sent my mom the video of the lecture, and in it he said that it was really important for parents to let children be creative. Dr. Pausch said that one way to do that was to allow kids to paint their rooms whatever way they want. This timing couldn’t have been anymore perfect for me, because my mom and I had just been arguing about what color to paint my room. While she liked the light blue that it already was, I saw a picture of a room in a magazine with bright, school bus yellow walls and fell in love with it. As you can see, after hearing the lecture she gave in:
So even though it’s not a very big thing, I guess I have Randy Pausch to thank for convincing my mom to let me paint my room such an obnoxious color. If you haven’t thrown out today’s newspaper yet, I would definitely suggest reading the article. It asks different people in the community this question: “What wisdom would you impart to future generations if you knew it was your last chance?” My favorite quote is from Dick Chudnow, the owner of ComedySportz: “If you’re waiting for something to happen, it won’t.”
