Dreams

  After hearing what Randy Pausch had to say about achieving your dreams, I believe it's not so hard as many think. The difficulty is following the steps to get there. Based on what Pausch said I picked up on these few:

Be kind to everyone. Always. Even if they are unkind, they may be of help later in life.

Make good connections with people.

"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted."

Work hard, because you won't get anywhere if you don't.

Most of what he said were things that I already knew. Tips to success that I had already heard. However, he was able to reopen my eyes to how important these facts were by giving life examples where they came in handy. Pausch became living (or rather dying) proof that these common tips are true. He checked off all the dreams on his childhood list and made it seem easy. He was clever enough, well connected enough, outgoing enough to get what he wanted. 

When Pausch was talking about the offer Disney made him to become an imagineer, I was absolutely silenced by shock. The sheer amount of creativity, intelligence, and willpower it would take to land a job at THE WALT DISNEY is so out of reach to so many people that refusing a job offer is an actual sin. When Pausch started talking about Disney is when I really started to listen, and when he stated that he refused the job offer I think I lost the ability to hear. 

Working as Disney is a dream of mine as well. Getting offered a job would be the highest honor. I found myself thinking this guy must really know how to achieve one's dreams if he can become an imagineer. And so I listened to everything he had to say very carefully from that point on. 

I realized that Randy Pausch got to achieve most of his dreams by being clever. Can't go in zero gravity because your a teacher? Well journalists are allowed. Become a journalist. He also had a lot of friends to help him along the way. People that gave him a chance. But in order for me to get any help I had to go farther back, because before people give you a chance, you have to prove yourself. Be a good student and a better person. Everything seems to trail back to being good to people. Be kind to one person and they'll help you out. Help one person with something, and they owe you a favor. 

After thinking through it enough, I got some information from Randy's lecture that was never explicitly said. The world doesn't really care who you are. It just sits there and lets you shape it however it wants. If there was only one person on earth, they could shape the world however they wanted. But there's not just one person, and this is where we run into problems. Now the world isn't yours, it's yours and everyone else's, but there is just one world to shape. One reality to mold. Now that there are other people, you have to fight for what you want and you can't do it alone. You need to make friends because the world doesn't run on money it runs on favors.

Randy Pausch got everything he seemed to want. He was so pleased with his life and his impact on the world that he didn't much care that he had 3 months to live. To achieve everything I want and die without a care is my dream.