Most people spend their life searching for happiness, peace of mind or love, but I think that in the book The Last Lecture Randy is looking for more then that. He is not trying to find these things for himself but for his family. Randy is dying. He has pancreatic cancer and no treatments are working. The Last Lecture is inspirational story about how Randy’s literal Last Lecture that he gives at Carnegie Mellon. His lecture titled Really Achieving your childhood dreams is a compilation of all the life lessons that he wants his three young kids to hear after he is gone. Through out this book Randy is trying to find happiness, peace of mind and love for his family.
Everyone wants to be happy, however, this can be really tough when you know that
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He not only wants them to be able to love others after he is gone but he wants them to truly fathom how much he loves them. That is one of the main reasons that Randy is giving this lecture. He wants his kids to be able to watch it and see how much he loved and cared for them. Randy would like his wife to be happy after he is gone. He moved his kids and their whole lives so that Jai can have support after his death. Randy also thinks that someday Jai should remarry so the kids can grow up with a father. He knows deep down that Jai will be okay with time. “She’s a strong women, my wife” (Pausch 21). Randy knows that hat after his death there will be many people in their lives who love and support them and who will be there for them. He knows that they won’t be alone and that they will be loved.
Randy is searching for happiness, peace of mind, and love for his family. He wants them to be happy and at peace when he dies; he also wants them to be loved and feel loved. His kids will get a good picture of who their dad was based on this book and the video that was taken of his last lecture. His family is going to have a hard time losing him but they will get better because of all the thing randy did to insure that they will have a good support
I always looked at death as such a sad thing that is eventually going to occur to everyone. However, after reading this book, it made me realize death can actually be a beautiful thing. Death allows a person to go to a next life, one where they will be loved and others will be there for them. It was interesting to be able to read about stories that these hospice care workers witnessed themselves. I have experienced a few deaths within my life and I never coped with them very well. After reading this book, I honestly believe I will be able to look at the positive side of death and be able to deal with my emotions better. I can also help others surrounding me deal with a death that they are experiencing. This book was filled with information that I loved learning. For example, I never knew that a dying person can choose a time to die. The thought of this never occurred to me before. I always thought that when it was someone’s time to go, they had no choice. But, a dying person can “put off” passing on until they see a certain person or event that has great significance in their life. Nevertheless, there are still people who will wait to die until they’re all alone in the room. This book makes you think of real life situations and think what you would do in them. Taken as a whole, it was a very in depth book that changes the way you would naturally perceive
In “Roger Ebert: The Essential Man” by Chris Jones, Ebert displays an astonishing amount of optimism despite the many hard obstacles physically and emotionally, that he has gone through. Ebert Values life differently from the rest of us because he knows what it's like to lose someone close to you. Ebert focuses on what makes him happy like his work and the good memories of his life. Ebert writes about death saying “I know it is coming, and I don not fear it”. Ebert has comes to terms with his inevitability and chooses to look on the brightside. Ebert is the type of person to not agree with putting a price tag on life. He knows that life is unique.
A strong sense of self, in the words of William Shakespeare, is “To know what we are, but not what we might be.” In the book, A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the main character, Gene, ¬¬struggled with having a strong sense of self. His lack of identity negatively affected his life. The major consequence of his absent sense of self was his burning envy and hatred toward his extremely athletically gifted friend Finny. Gene’s lack of identity and hatred toward Finny led him to shake a limb if a tree that Finny was climbing. Finny fell and broke his leg. He later died when the bone marrow escaped into his blood. Gene’s behavior caused Finny’s death but there is reason to believe that Finny would have died anyway. For example, Finny could have been killed in the army, Finny’s lack of caution caused him to break his leg again, and the branch would have broken since it was already weak causing Finny to fall and die.
I learned from the book that a former student reconnected with his old college professoi Morrie who was diagnosed with ALS (a terminal disease). Through their reconnection, Mitch and Morrie begin to meet every Tuesdays to discuss the different problems they face and the meaning of life. Also, choosing not to live his final months in fear. Morrie meditated on life and spread his ideas in the form of short aphorisms.
The number one objective that humans want to achieve before they are on their death bed is having a good life. They do not want to ponder the fact of accomplishing their goal before they perish into their state of death. To fulfill your life and achieve joy, one must have a philosophy they need to follow during their lifetime.
What makes one person happy may not be enough to make someone else happy; everyone has different standards. For example a few extra dollars may mean rent for one person whereas a few extra dollars may not even make a difference to another person. There is no true definition on happiness. Mueller wrote “ happy ones who never raised their voice” which
Randy appeals to the emotions of his readers through the persuasion of pathos, and writes about how he and his wife, Jai, fell in love and had three children. By illustrating how sad and emotional he was about leaving his family so soon due to pancreatic cancer, Pausch makes the tone and mood of the book very emotional as well. He explains that he spent a good amount of his time with his family, but his children were all very young when he was diagnosed. He writes, “I know their memories may be fuzzy. That’s why I’m trying to do things with them that they’ll find unforgettable” (Pausch 192). Fueled by his love for his family, Pausch made the most of the time that he had left with his wife and children. He never moped around his family. Instead, he decided he wanted his family to remember him in his health, so he wrote notes and filmed videos dedicated to his children as memories for the rest of their lives. Pausch knew the importance of being surrounded by love during his battle with cancer. By using the language and appeal of pathos in his memoir, Pausch was able to share this value with his readers. His goal in writing The Last Lecture was to remind people not to waste the time and the life that they have. His important message: find love in any form, because it will make the time you have vastly more
In the book, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, a boy named Jeremy wants to find the keys for a special box left by his late father. He meets people along the way as he’s looking for the, “Meaning of Life”, such as Mr. Rudolph and Dr.Grady. These men gave him their beliefs about the meaning of life.
In reality he should be living life until it's his last and not worry in the world. He thinks by fighting Humbaba it will enchant him everlasting life as well “The meaning of the dream is this. The father of the gods has give you kingship, such is your destiny, everlasting life is not your destiny”(Penguin Classics 70). Gilgamesh was told by the god that he should focus on being a king and enjoy his life instead of searching for everlasting life. Randy Pausch talks about his cancer to others and how he receives the news. He writes about how he knows himself too well and how others do to “Anyone who knows me will tell you I’ve always had a healthy sense of myself and my abilities”(Pausch 66). This shows that Randy lived his life to the fullest and to what he could do and not worry about his legacy and fame. With my own life, I have faced depression head on. I was like Gilgamesh. I was on the search for happiness and only hope it’d come in a box with smiley faces on it. I had to live day to day I realized that happiness will build over
Happiness is something most humans value above everything else. The various things in life that make us happy, such as family, friends, and cool cars, to name a few, are the very things we hold dearest to us and place the most value on. People fill their lives with things that please them to ease the gloom that comes as a result of the seemingly never-ending trials and tribulations of life. We gladly accept any amount of pleasure we can extract from the monotony of our daily lives, and we will do almost anything to achieve happiness.
Randy Pausch once said, “We cannot change the cards we are dealt with, just how we play the hand.” The last lecture is a speech that professor write. It is what the last lecture they would say if it was the last lecture they’d make in their life. In The Last Lecture, Pausch explains his childhood dreams and everything he accomplished to make them possible, and how to help other accomplish their dreams. Pausch is an inspiring fighter; he’s considered a fighter for the fact that since he found out he has ten tumors in his liver, yet he still lives his life to the fullest. Pausch has an undergraduate degree in Computer Science in Brown 1982; he earned his PHD in Computer Science in Carnegie Mellon University in 1988, and joined the Carnegie Mellon staff in 1997. Pausch’s last lecture is actually for his family, not his actual audience. He knows he’ll die soon, so his family to read when they’re older.
The last statement of the desperate longings of the dead, presents the reader with another turning point in his views. The last lines portray the dead as "desperate presences hammering at the gates", illustrating the dead to be longing for something. The reader tries to distinguish what the "gates" are; possibly these gates are the gates to life. It would make sense that the dead are, in their free, careless, and un-timed existence, in fact longing of the happiness of being social and
Happiness is a feeling that humans naturally desire. Without it, one feels incomplete. In this generation, happiness has taken on a definition by how we are presented to one another. It is measured by how much money we have, how famous we are, or the things we possess. When in reality, none of these things guarantee a happy life. Happiness is something that cannot be bought with money, but rather, it must be found, earned, sought after. Each and every one of us has our own list of things that we consider to make us happy. However, happiness shines brightest through the relationships we create, and the goals we make for ourselves to strive after. Along with these two essential sources, we then can mix and match those things in life that we enjoy to create our own unique formula for happiness.
Throughout my life, I have learned to see that happiness is not such an inaccessible dream. Although its notion varies from one person to another, happiness is often times only one inch away. Some people will experience happiness in the pursuit of it. Some will find it in sacrificing themselves for greater goals. Others will find it in people’s company, in lust or in drugs. There is no recipe for success or happiness, and it is only up to us to define what we want from life, and how we want to get it. The only certain thing is that it is never too late for anybody to achieve their dreams, to make peace with their feelings, and ultimately, to be happy.
Happiness is a state of mind. The dictionary definition is "feelings of joy and pleasure mingled together”. A feeling of happiness is more than just an experience of joy or pleasure. It is a state of mind where the individual feels that “life is good”. As Aristotle says, “happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” I believe that everyone wants to be happy in life. One is abnormal if he prefers to be sad and alone.