"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."

Over the past several months I've seen this video twice...once on Good Morning America and then again on Oprah. Randy Pausch is an extraordinary individual who is facing an inevitable and ordinary challenge that all of us will one day have to face. The only difference between Randy and so many of us is the way in which he's choosing to accept his fate and how he's sharing the lessons he's learned throughout his life with the rest of us in such a candid way. Randy is a Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction and Design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and was asked to deliver a lecture for their "Journeys" series in September of last year. The series asks top academics to share their reflections on the actions, decisions, challenges and joys that make up a journey through this lifetime and then speak to that in a hypothetical "final talk" to the students. In Randy's case however, his speech wasn't based on hypothetical circumstances because in August of last year the 47 year old married father of three was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.

When something continually pops up in my life I'm left to wonder what lesson I'm supposed to learn from it and in this case I think it's pretty clear. But when I was sent this again today I also thought that perhaps I'm meant to share it with others as well so that's what I'm choosing to do. If you've seen it already, it won't hurt you to watch it again and if you've never seen it, please take a few moments out of your day and listen to what Randy Pausch has to say. Over the past few months I've been completely captivated by Randy and so I try to keep up with his progress and in doing so I've found his website that will give you lots of information on his story and the page he updates regularly that focuses more on with his personal journey through this terminal illness with musings on his children, family, friends and activities that he's involved in currently. He's quite a remarkable man, Randy Pausch and I hope you'll take the time to watch him give his last lecture titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" and perhaps even enjoy his lecture on Time Management that I REALLY love a lot as well or any of the other lectures he's given that are available here. If you want a transcript of the lecture, you can find a link here.

Hyperion has made Randy's lecture into a book...it's available for purchase here. Get a copy for everyone on your Christmas list. They'll love it. And while I'm sharing about Randy, I'll share some tunes as well:

I'm a big Beatles fan so here are two from them:

The Beatles - "In My Life"

The Beatles - "A Day in the Life"

Some oldies but goodies that I came across today while quickly browsing for songs for this post:

Dire Straits - "Walk of Life"

Joe Walsh - "Life's Been Good"

Ty Herndon - "Living in a Moment" (Whatever happened to that guy?!)

And thanks to my friend Jonell I just love IZ.

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - "N Dis Life"