Living Life to the Fullest

If you haven't already heard about Randy Pausch then let me introduce you to this amazing individual.

Pausch is a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who was asked to give a talk titled "The Last Lecture."

When he was asked to give this talk he didn't have to pretend it could be his last lecture, because he had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

He is a husband, father and much too young to die - someone who has so much to offer not only his family, but the students whose lives he has touched.

Faced with the grim facts of his situation he decided that he was going to use his lecture as a means to leave something behind for his children, ages 1, 2 and 5 years old.

His lecture would be a message for his children about the joy of life and how important it is to appreciate it. He would share with his children the things that are the most important to him - living with integrity, honesty and gratitude.

Pausch's lecture evolved into much more than he ever imagined.

He was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and with the help of Jeffrey Zaslow, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Pausch's book, The Last Lecture, has become a national best seller.

When talking about his pancreatic cancer Pausch said, "That is what it is. We can't change it. We just have to decide how we'll respond. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."

His time on earth is limited, yet his ability to live life to the fullest has no limits.

"I'm dying and I'm having fun. And I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left. Because there's no other way to play it."

He decided early on in life that we all have a decision to make about the way we live life. He uses the Winnie the Pooh characters created by A. A. Milne as examples.

"Each of us must decide: Am I a fun-loving Tigger or am I a sad-sack Eeyore?"

He is not in denial about his situation, but he chooses to live like he is still living, instead of living like he is dying.

His book will make you cry and make you want to seize every moment, because "time is all you have... and you may find one day that you have less than you think."

It's always easy to assume that when we are faced with a crisis, we will be able to handle it with courage and dignity.

But the reality is that until we're in that situation we really don't know how we will react.

To view the video of Pausch's lecture, visit www.thelastlecture.com.

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Maria Luisa Salcines is a freelance writer, certified parent educator and corporate empowerment consultant with The International Network for Children and Families in Redirecting Children's Behavior, Redirecting for a Cooperative Classroom, and Redirecting Corporate America. Contact her at her Web site at www.redirectingchildrenrgv.org.