The Last Lecture

A beautiful letter/lecture from a person who’s got the news that he has a few months to live. I had seen the video lecture this book is based on in bits and pieces way back but I recently got this book as a gift from a friend and felt it was finally time to read it. The first few pages and you’re hooked, you want to know who this man is? what is he going to talk about? What is he going to teach you? He’s a professor after all. It’s such an emotional roller coaster, this book, you’d be tearing up in one chapter, laughing out loud in the next, and ruminating about a life lesson in the coming. The author gave this lecture/wrote this book so that he could leave all the things he would want to teach his children throughout their lives, available for them when they grow up. It reminded me of When Breath Becomes Air given the somewhat similar sobering theme.

The author recalls his own childhood, how he had several dreams, and how he achieved a lot of them, some even in bizarre ways. He talks about parenting advice, learning advice, and relationship advice during the whole lecture. For instance, he remembers how his school soccer coach would emphasize “fundamentals” and how that helped him throughout his life. I particularly liked a story from when he was a little kid, in Disneyland, how he broke a souvenir he had bought for his parents. While crying and walking back to their parents, someone suggested he go back to the store and ask for help. The author reluctantly—because it was his fault after all—was bamboozled when the clerk at the souvenir store happily accepted the broken item and in turn blamed their packaging, handing him a completely new piece. I don’t know why but this story stuck with me for some reason, perhaps because of the impact that simple gesture had on this little kid and turned his life around for the good. He also focused on how “brick” walls are there to keep those people away from things who don’t want those things bad enough. He experienced this when it came to his relationship with his wife, his coveted fellowship at Disney Imagineering Labs, and many more such life-changing events. The bottom line is if you want something, work hard for it. I could go on and on jotting down all the things I learned and found interesting in this short book.

At the end of reviews, I normally suggest the reader to read the said book if they’re interested in the topic, but not this one. Everyone should read this book, it’s a poignant reminder to live the life we have for ourselves because as with everything else in life, we start valuing something when we don’t have it, and it’s excruciating when that commodity is time.

Sometimes,
with the passage of time, and deadlines that life imposed,
surrendering became the right thing to do.