What would you do if you were told that you had only three to six months to live? Would you skydive? Would you climb Mt. Everest? Would you take your dream vacation? This situation became the reality for 47-year-old Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, a husband and father to three young children.

Much like Morrie Schwartz, in the bestseller Tuesday’s With Morrie, Randy Pausch spent the last months of his life inspiring others to achieve their dreams. He didn’t focus on the fact that he had pancreatic cancer and was going to die. Instead he left a legacy that has inspired millions of people around the world to turn their life around.

His “Last Lecture” speech that he gave at Carnegie Mellon challenges all of us to believe in our childhood dreams and live our lives to the fullest. So many people think that their dreams are crazy and they can’t achieve them. Pausch advises us to be specific with our dreams. For example, he wanted to experience zero gravity, but knew he didn’t want to be an astronaut. Since he just wanted to feel what it is like to float around in space, he signed up for the NASA training program to experience “the vomit comet,” which allowed him to be weightless for about 30 seconds. That was good enough for him; one dream checked off of his list.

Another element that stood out to me was his take on the brick walls that pop up along our journey. "Any time I had a chance to do something cool, I went for it," Pausch said. "Brick walls are there for a reason: They show us how badly we want things; they let us show our dedication."

This is really true. If you want something bad enough, you can do it. In fact, “If you can dream it… You can do it” is engraved on a bracelet that I wear every day to remind me of this very fact.

We all have different backgrounds and different life experiences, but we all have the ability to dream. So what were your childhood dreams? Is there any part of those that you can make come true today?

Don’t wait until you are given a death sentence to live your life. Thanks to Randy Pausch, an ordinary man with meaningful messages, for reminding all of us to live our lives and never stop dreaming.
 

Take a few minutes and watch even a small portion of his speech.