Living the Dream

Carnegie Melon university put on a series where professors have a chance to say what their last words would be if they had to give some last words of advice at some point, and this week I read the last speech of Randy Pausch.¹  The catch is that he was actually dying when he gave it.  He had ten tumors in his liver and had been given only a few more months to live.  In what may have been literally his last speech, Randy delivered a message full of hope and laughter despite his grim future.  He taught that we should chase our dreams.  He said that “the brick walls are the to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.  They’re there to stop the other people.”  That leads us to reason, ‘are we the other people?’  That’s our choice.  We can want it bad enough, or we can let it slide by.

Right now I’m living my dream.  I’m going to college so I can make something of myself and my life.  I’m married to the woman of my dreams.  I’m working my butt off and doing whatever I can to make ends meet for my tiny little family in our tiny one bedroom apartment, and that’s exactly where I wanted to be when I was 22. It’s hard but it’s my dream for this part of my life.  Here in five, ten, fifteen or fifty years though, my dreams are different.

During this last week I had a chance to develop a bucket list of 50 things I wanted to do at the recommendation of this article from The Washington Post. It was hard people!  I breezed through twenty or so and then I had to ask my wife and start thinking about things that I didn’t think I would be able to do but would love to do.  Here’s a link to my list, and I would love to see all of yours in a message or comments or anything.  At my50.com you can make your list, keep track of it and share it with others.  My list includes going to space and seeing a million dollars in my bank account.  I put hunting on my list and I don’t even like guns, but that’s not what it’s about.  It’s about stretching and pushing myself and going on adventures so I can say at the end of the day that I lived my life.

As I was making this list, I realized that I didn’t care if it was impossible! I have things I want to do, and I’m not going to stop.  If I have to work my butt off for fifteen years so I can take a whole year off and do the things I need to do while I’m still young enough to do them then I will!  I have the choice in the end, and so do you. Will we go through our daily grind and live our lives merely surviving day by day, or will we really truly live?