The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (April 2008)

I  recall 2009, the year I embarked on (another) master’s degree, as a year of multilinear regressions, decision making under uncertainty, cost benefit analysis, and writing up pages and pages of policy papers backed by quantitative evidence. I was sleeping an average of four hours, six days a week.

I made sure, however, that I’d read something different, uplifting, bizarre, at least one day each week. It was a year of Haruki Murakamis, Graham Greenes, and lots of memoirs and biographies. 

One of the books that particularly struck me that year was Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture”. Coincidentally, Pausch was a professor at the university where I was studying at that time and who sadly passed away a year before. The book made such an impact on me that in the graduation speech that I delivered at the end of 2009, I quoted from the "Last Lecture": “Brick walls are there for a reason. And once you get over them – even if someone practically had to throw you over – it can be helpful to others to tell them how you did it.”

I have probably re-read the book three or four times and different parts of it resonated more strongly than others at various points the last few years. These days, I enjoy giving a copy of the book to welcome new hires in our organization (after all, this is the university where Pausch used to teach). It is a beautiful memoir full of optimism despite the circumstances under it was written, on overcoming challenges, the utter joy of doing what you love, achieving dreams, and being true to your core.  But what I treasure most about this book is that it drives home the point of the finiteness of life and of being made acutely aware of that finiteness.

I am not sure what our new hires do with the book but I was immensely thrilled when one morning, I got an email  from one of my favourite professors pointing me to his book review. 

(Scout’s honour, getting employees to legitimately want to work overtime after an induction is not one of the reasons in handing out the “Last Lecture”. But I share your sentiments Zbig, our heart is in the work.)

That was not a head fake.