Randy Pausch Passes Away (Updated)

Posted on July 25, 2008 by Bruce Keener

It is being widely reported this morning that Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch, 47, has lost his battle with pancreatic cancer.

I know many of you have been moved and inspired by this courageous young man’s “last lecture,” where he shared with us how to spend time on what’s really important. If you would like to watch a brief snippet from that lecture, please refer to my previous post: Life Advice from a Dying Professor. (The full 75-minute video, which is excellent, is here on YouTube.)

Dr. Pausch lived a short life, but he lived it well. I consider him to be one of the most inspiring speakers I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a bunch of good ones.

Anyway, I thought you would want to know of this sad news. We all knew it was coming. He knew, very well, that it was coming, but it did not stop him from living life as it should be lived.

Update: The New York Times has an article that has a lot of links to material about Dr. Pausch, including his Time Management presentation. Extremely good links. Also, Pascal provides a really good link in the comments section below.

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  • capo

    Some time ago I watched the entire presentation. It was definitely inspiring. Hard to believe he was that close to death, but I guess any of us could be and not know it. The thing is, Randy’s situation wasn’t really that unique – what I mean is, we *all* know it’s coming. All of us will be dead, sooner or later. Time is the most valuable commodity and nobody, no matter how rich or how powerful, can increase their wealth by one minute. The goal should be to live our lives so they have meaning, no matter if we expect to die in a few weeks or live a long life.

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

    Right on, capo! Very well said. Any of us could be gone before the day is done.

  • http://pascalvenier.com/blog/ Pascal Venier

    Thanks for pointer, Bruce. This is so inspirational!

  • http://www.sethigherstandards.com/5-reasons-to-live-a-purpose-driven-life/ Ravi

    Hi Bruce,

    Ironically, I just ran across this lecture a few days ago and posted a note about it on my blog as well.

    It was so inspirational. If only those of us who are not faced with such dire circumstances in our lives could have a sliver of presence and energy that Randy was able to muster in his final months.

    Great blog btw….just subscribed.

    Namaste,

    Ravi

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

    Ravi,
    Amen … his presence and energy were enviable. Great guy. Great loss.

    Thanks for subscribing. I hope I don’t disappoint you … I tend to talk about whatever is on my mind.

    I like your blog too … really good stuff there, and I just subscribed to it.

    Thanks for adding your thoughts.

  • http://pascalvenier.com/blog/ Pascal Venier

    I am really looking forward to that, the more so as I shall soon start a second blog, and I am looking for a very good theme.

    After reading your post on Pausch and watching his presentation, I found this very interesting page on The Legacy of Randy Pausch, by one of his friends and former students, which offers a very good selection of links to further materials, including a most fascinating lecture on Time management.
    http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Randy/The Legacy of Randy Pausch

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

    Hi Pascal,

    BTW, I think the theme you are using is very good, too. Brian Gardner also does great work.

    When you get a chance, could your repost the link? It seems to not want to pull up for me and returns a 404. I tried copying and pasting the full entry but that did not work either.

    Best, and thanks again.

  • http://pascalvenier.com/blog/ Pascal Venier

    Thank you very much.

    Sorry about the link. The correct address is http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Randy/

    Both Time Management and The Last Lecture are availble on You Tube, you should therefore be able to embed them on your blog.

    Keep up the good work. It is great to see that you did not stop blogging as you envisaged a while back. ;-)

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

    Pascal,

    Thank you very much for the links and for the words of encouragement. Much appreciated!

  • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

    Thanks for mentioning this, Thomas. I will download some of his videos today.