Randy Pausch Inspires Graduates

ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming home Randy Pausch I'm glad to be here today hell I'm glad to be anywhere today president Cohen asked me to come and give the charge to the graduates I assure you it's nothing compared to the charge you have just given me this is an incredible place I've seen it through so many lenses I saw it when I was a graduate student that didn't get admitted and then somebody invited me back and said okay we'll change our mind and I saw it as a place that hired me back to be on the faculty many years later and then gave me the chance to do what anybody wants to do which is follow their passion follow their heart and do the things they're excited about and the great thing about this university unlike almost other ones I know of is that nobody gets in your way when you try to do it and that's just fantastic and to the degree that a human being can love an institution I love this place and I love all of the people and I'm very grateful to Jerry Cohen and everyone else for all the kindness that had been shown me last August I was told that in all likelihood I had 3 to 6 months left to live I'm on month 9 now and I'm not going to get down and do any push-ups but there will be a short pickup basketball game later somebody said to me in light of those numbers wow so you're really beating the Grim Reaper and what I said without even thinking about is we don't beat the reaper by living longer we beat the reaper by living well and living fully for the Reaper will come for all of us the question is what do we do between the time were born and the time he shows up because when he shows up it's too late to do all the things that you're always going to kind of get around to so I think the only advice I can give you on how to live your life well is first off remember it's a cliche but I love cliches it is not the things we do in life that we regret on our deathbed it is the things we do not because I assure you I've done a lot of really stupid things and none of them bother me all the mistakes and all the dopey things and all the times I was embarrassed they don't matter what matters is that I can kind of look back and say pretty much any time I got a chance to do something cool I tried to grab for it and that's where my solace comes from the second thing that I would add to that and I didn't coordinate on the subject of this word but I think it's the right word that comes up is passion and you will need to find your passion many of you have already done it many of you will later many of you may take til your 30s or 40s but don't give up on finding it right because then all you're doing is waiting for the reboot find your passion and follow it and if there is anything I have learned in my life you will not find that passion in things and you will not find that passion in money because the more things and the more money you have the more you will just look around and use that as the metric and there will always be someone with more so your passion must come from the things that fuel you from the inside and honors and awards are nice things but only to the extent that they regard the real respect from your peers and to be thought well of by other people that you think even more highly of is a tremendous honor that I've been granted find your passion and in my experience no matter what you do at work or what you do in official settings that passion will be grounded in people and it will be pounded in the relationships you have with people and what they think of you when your time comes and if you can gain the respect of those around you and the passion and true love and I've said this before but I waited till 39 to get married because I had to wait that long to find someone where her happiness was more important than mine and if nothing else I hope that all of you can find that kind of passion and that kind of love in your life thank you

Channel: Carnegie Mellon University

Views: 1,765,156

Rating: 4.9199171 out of 5

Keywords: Randy, Pausch, Carnegie, Mellon, Really, Achieving, Your, Childhood, Dreams, Last, Lecture, Commencement, surprise, inspiration

Id: RcYv5x6gZTA

Length: 6min 32sec (392 seconds)

Published: Mon May 19 2008