Compare And Contrast The Last Lecture By Randy Pausch

It is truly remarkable how Randy Pausch and Morrie Schwartz stories are so similar but yet so different. They both seem to have an outlook on life in a positive way, not sad or demeaning. The only crippling difference is the fact that Morrie was at the age that wasn’t abnormal to be sick and Randy was just dealt the cards for a short life. One of Professor Randy Pausch’s many quotes during The Last Lecture makes a similar point between his experience and Morrie’s when he says, “…it’s hard to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer – people who get it don’t live long enough.” ALS is such a rehabilitating disease that scientist have issues pinpointing the causes to even get close to a cure, which didn’t hinder either of their strive to keep going as far as they could.

Author Randy Pausch says,” I am going to keep having fun every day I have left.” Mitch Albom, the author of Tuesday with Morrie, mentions how Morrie would dance and laugh out loud before the disease took him over and even if he didn’t have a choice but to stop, he kept going for as long as he could before he was just too tired to.

Professor Pausch said that “…it’s not the things we do in life that we regret on our deathbed, it’s the things we do not.” On Morrie’s deathbed he says to Mitch, “…because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back” (Albom 118). Both of these quotes make you think about what the day will bring you and essentially allows you to ask questions like ‘who will I impact and what can I do to make a

change’.
Strangely enough, the experience that they both go through go hand in hand. They also have the same look on how they want to be treated. Morrie says it in a beautiful, more simplistic way, “It’s wonderful because of all the time I get to say goodbye” (Albom 57). Randy says it in a more realistic way, “I’ve never understood pity and self-pity as an emotion.” They both explain the obvious emotion that all people go through but a dissimilarity between the two is that Morrie did usually have a small amount of self-pity in the morning. Their determination over power that when it comes to helping others in the long run and being able to face what is to come. Randy never gave up when it came to his dreams and future, Morrie never gave up when it came to getting out of poverty and helping those that wish too to by being a very influencing teacher. In the very end they also know what is to be their families struggle with seeing them pass.