书城励志震撼世界的声音:名人励志演讲集萃
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第100章 We Beat the Reaper by Living Fully(1)

Randy Pausch,Carnegie Mellon Professor Carnegie Mellon University,September 18,2007

Because he shows up,it is too late to do all the things that you‘re always gonna kind of“get round to”.

当死神来了时,才想到做那些我们一直想做而未做之事,就已经为时晚矣。

Randy Pausch

背景故事

曾经感动过无数人的《真正实现你的童年梦想》的演讲人兰迪·波许,他仅用了短短的6分钟的时间,便让人们感受到了另一种风格的演讲。在这篇演讲里,他少了些幽默,却多了些真诚的忠告。相信大家看后一定会受益匪浅。

名人简介

兰迪·波许Randy Pausch(1960-2008)卡内基·梅隆大学的计算机科学、人机交互及设计的教授。主讲“人与计算机交互”课程长达十年,虚拟科技的先驱者之一。2006年,他被诊断患有胰腺癌。次年8月他被告知可能仅剩3到6个月的生命。同年9月18日,他在卡内基梅隆大学作了轰动全球的“最后的演讲”。2008年7月25日,因胰腺癌并发症在家中去世,终年47岁,在生命中的最后时刻其妻子和三个孩子始终陪伴在他身边。

演讲赏析

We Beat the Reaper by Living Fully

Randy Pausch,Carnegie Mellon Professor Carnegie Mellon University,September 18,2007

I am glad to be here today.Hell,I am glad to be anywhere today.

President Cohon 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 have 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,OK,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 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 all the 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 am very grateful to Jerry Cohon and everyone else for all the kindness they have shown me.

Last August I was told that in all likelihood I had three to six months left to live.I am on month nine now and I am gonna get down and do any push-ups……But there will be a short pick-up basketball game later.

Somebody said to me,in light of those numbers,wow,so you are really beating the Grim Reaper.And what I said without even thinking about is that 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 we are born and the time he shows up.

Because he shows up it is too late to do all the things that you’re always gonna kind of“get round 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 love cliche,“it is not the things we do in life that we regret on our death bed,it is the things we do not”.

Because I assure you I’ve done a lot of stupid things and none of them bother me.All the mistakes,all the dopey things and all the times I was embarrassed they don‘t matter.What matter is that,I can kind of look back and say,“pretty much anytime 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 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 you passion.Many of you have already done it,many of you will later,many of you will take till your 30s or 40s.But don‘t give up on finding it.Alright?’cause then all you‘re doing is waiting for the Reaper.Find you passion and follow it.

And if there’s anything I have learned in my life,you will not find 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 be 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.