Childhood Dreams

It's 5:32 AM, and I'm wide awake and feel inexplicably alive. I'm in one of those places mentally where you just feel like you're on top of the world. I read a book today called The Last Lecture. It was written by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist for The Washington Post. Pausch is a computer scientist and professor who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2006 that would unfortunately spread to his liver and spleen. 

In August of 2007, he was given months to live and began palliative chemotherapy to try to ease the pain and buy him a few extra months. Anyway, Randy decided that he wouldn't just give up and so, in September, he gave a lecture at Carnegie Mellon entitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." He became semi-famous after giving this lecture, with an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in October and an hour-long interview with Diane Sawyer that aired April 9th on ABC.

For Randy, he points all of his success to his upbringing and credits his parents with allowing him to achieve his dreams. He likes cliches and quotes from other people, because they are full of wisdom and when you say things that smart people say, it's easy to look smart yourself; so, as Randy says, "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." I, too, love cliches and really appreciate the fact that my parents impart their wisdom on to me.

So, here's my brief (pshh, yeah right, am I ever brief when I become impassioned?) summary of how I came to be reading the book today and subsequently writing this entry. My mom likes to send me chain e-mails with "uplifting" messages. Most of the time, they are written by middle-aged white women who, no offense, don't know shit and need to rely on recycled spiritual garbage to stay positive about their mediocre upper middle class existence. You know, the Oprah crowd. Anyway, sometimes mi madre can be one of them and she sent me a clip from Oprah that showed Randy reprising his "Last Lecture." Long story short, I'm a loser, and I was inspired by what he had to say.

Fast forward a few days. I feel inspired once again, but in a different sense. I just saw economist Jeffrey Sachs give a speech to some students about the economic health of this country and the things that can be done in order to end poverty. He has a new book, too, called Common Wealth. So after dinner, I decided to take a stroll over to the Barnes & Noble in Kenmore Square to pick it up. As I'm browsing through the shelves (one of my favorite pastimes), I stumble upon a copy of The Last Lecture and decide to buy it as a gift for my mother. To pay for my purchases that day, I whipped out my trusty B&N gift card, which I received when returning a textbook my father paid for and by using his membership card for 10% off. Thanks Mom and Dad, always there to help even when you are not really there.

So I was having a good day today, the weather was beautiful, why not take a few minutes to glance through a few pages, see if it's any good? Two hours and 206 pages later, here I am, with a newfound sense of hope. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that my grandmother passed away three years ago after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. If you want to make a donation or find out more about the disease, check out these charitable websites: The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, and The Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research because c'mon, seriously, who doesn't wanna help cure cancer?

Okay, so, wow, I've been rambling. Anyway, if you wanna read an excerpt from the book or see the reprisal of the lecture on Oprah, check them out below. And be sure to read my list of childhood dreams up above and leave a comment on your childhood dreams.