Blog Post #8

Today I watched a very moving lecture entitled Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. The speaker was a man by the name of Randy Pausch. This lecture went viral on YouTube raking in 17 million plus views  as of this blog write up. The subject of the lesson as stated in the title is achieving your childhood dreams and helping someone else obtain theirs. This is a really cool video because you can just tell how happy he is with his own life and how positive his outlook is. This is especially heartbreaking because Randy had just got a diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer. This did not slow him down while giving his lecture. He had the calm collective poise of a man who had done many great things in his life and wanted to share his knowledge. 

There were many really cool moments in this video but one that really hit home to me was this quote"brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things." That is my favorite line from Randy's lecture. It is a good quote that we should all have written down somewhere. Especially people like many of you reading this blog who plan to enter the teaching profession or are currently teaching in a classroom. We will be faced with many brick walls on this path we have all chosen to walk. These brick walls will test our limits and our strength of character. They will try to make us feel like there is no point or purpose to the job we are trying to do. They will try to take away our drive to be great teachers. These brick walls want nothing more than to watch you become just an average teacher who just shows up and runs through the motions. We must work hard our whole lives to bust these walls down when they arise on our path. We must strive to overcome these hard situations and be the best teachers that we can be. While reading Randy's quote I was reminded of another favorite saying of mine by author Darnell Walker “Sometimes our walls exist just to see who has the strength to knock them down." The message that rings in my head this after watching this video is always be the best you can be and you will achieve your dreams. 

This was a a lecture filled to the brim with a multitude of emotions. Ultimately the prevailing one to me was that of hope. We can hope that tomorrow we can make a difference in not only our lives but someone else as well. That is the message that Randy spoke to me. I am sure with such a great lecture it spoke to many people in many different ways. That is why it went viral and later went on to become a best selling book. This great speech continues to serve as Randy's great final opus in what was an already an extraordinary life. It contiunes to inspire people every year, month, and day. I am sure that he is proud that this great message continues to be heard even after his time on this world has ended.