The Last Lecture

Using lessons he would work into his classes, Pausch again offers practical tips for anyone who wants to make the most out of their life. In Chapter 38 he invites us to embrace clichés as an important instructional tool. The most common ones he used were:

• Dance with the one who brung you.
• Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
• Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.
• Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? (146-47).

Chapter 39, entitled “Be the First Penguin,” recalls how Pausch used the First Penguin Award to encourage his students to take risks, even when failure was a strong possibility. The award went to the group that took the biggest gamble and failed to achieve their goals. In short, it was an award for spectacular failure that honored unconventional thinking and daring use of imagination. The idea was inspired by the fact that when “penguins are about to jump into water that might contain predators, well, somebody’s got to be the first penguin” (149).

In Chapter 40 Pausch uses the analogy of clear, technical writing to teach his students about the pitfalls of being really “smart.” Their computer programming and engineering often involves complex design work, but they are creating things for people who don’t have this knowledge; therefore, their instructions must be clear and simple. They need to “[think] about the end users of their creations” (150).