面對即將到來的死亡,他積極樂觀;面對三個年幼的孩子,他像所有的父親一樣,愛心溢于言表。蘭迪·波許說:“我知道(演講)那一天自己做了什么——我是假借了學(xué)術(shù)講座之名,而試圖將自己裝進(jìn)一只漂流瓶里,期望有一天它能夠抵達(dá)我那三個在海灘上嬉戲的孩子。”我想那三個孩子是幸福的,擁有父親留下來的最寶貴的精神財富;我們無疑也是幸運(yùn)的,看到了蘭迪·波許教授用生命最后的熱情迸發(fā)出的熊熊火焰。
其實每個人在童年時都有一份自己的夢想清單,但未必會真正付諸行動去實現(xiàn)它們,有時一個挫折就使我們望而卻步。而在波許看來,挫折好比“磚墻”,“磚墻的存在是有意義的,它不是來把我們阻擋在外面,而是要讓我們證明自己對里面的東西究竟有多么向往,是要讓我們顯示自己有多么誠心和盡力”。他推倒了一堵堵磚墻,體驗到夢想成真的快樂。我們每一個還依稀記得童年夢想的人都要好好體味一下蘭迪·波許教授留給我們的金玉良言。
It’s wonderful to be here. What Indira didn’t tell you is that this lecture series used to be called the Last Lecture. If you had one last lecture to give before you died, what would it be? I thought, damn, I finally 1)nailed the 2)venue and they renamed it. So, you know, in case there’s anybody who wandered in and doesn’t know the back story, my dad always taught me when there’s an elephant in the room, introduce them. If you look at my 3)CAT scans, there are approximately 10 4)tumors in my liver, and the doctors told me three to six months of good health left. That was a month ago, so you can do the math. I have some of the best doctors in the world. Microphone’s not working? Then I’ll just have to talk louder. [Adjusts mic] Is that good? All right. So that is what it is. We can’t change it, and we just have to decide how we’re going to respond to that. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. If I don’t seem as depressed or 5)morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.
All right, so what is today’s talk about then? It’s about my childhood dreams and how I have achieved them. I’ve been very fortunate that way. How I believe I’ve been able to enable the dreams, I’ve been able to enable the dreams of others, and to some degree, lessons learned—I’m a professor, there should be some lessons learned—and how you can use the stuff you hear today to achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others. And as you get older, you may find that “enabling the dreams of others” thing is even more fun.
So what were my childhood dreams? You may not agree with this list, but I was there. Being in zero gravity, playing in the National Football League, authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopedia—I guess you can tell the 6)nerds early. Being 7)Captain Kirk, anybody here have that childhood dream? Not at 8)CMU, no. I wanted to become one of the guys who won the big stuffed animals in the amusement park, and I wanted to be an Imagineer with Disney. These are not 9)sorted in any particular order, although I think they do get harder, except for maybe the first one.
All right, let’s talk about football. My dream was to play in the National Football League. And most of you don’t know that I actually—no. No, I did not make it to the National Football League, but I probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones that I did accomplish.
I had a coach; I signed up when I was nine years old. I was the smallest kid in the league, by far. And I had a coach, Jim Graham, who was 6’4’’; he had played 10)linebacker at Penn State. He was just this 11)hulk of a guy and he was old school. OK, I mean really old school. Like he thought the forward pass was a trick play. So, and he showed up for practice the first day, and you know, there’s big hulking guy, we were all scared to death of him. And he hadn’t brought any footballs. How are we going to have practice without any footballs? And one of the other kids said, “Excuse me, coach, but there’s no football”. And Coach Graham said, “Right, how many men are on a football field at a time?” “Eleven on a team, 22.” Coach Graham said, “All right, and how many people are touching the football at any given time?” “One of them.” And he said, “Right, so we’re going to work on what those other 21 guys are doing.” And that’s a really good story because it’s all about 12)fundamentals. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You’ve got to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work.
And the other Jim Graham story I have is there was one practice where he just rode me all practice. You’re doing this wrong, you’re doing this wrong, go back and do it again, you owe me, you’re doing 13)push-ups after practice. And when it was all over, one of the other assistant coaches came over and said, “Yeah, Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn’t he?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “That’s a good thing.” He said, “When you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up.” And that’s a lesson that stuck with me my whole life, is that when you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are the ones telling you they still love you and care.

能到這里來真的太棒了。英迪拉沒有告訴你們,這個系列講座曾被稱為“最后一課”。如果你死之前開最后一個講座,你會講什么?我想,得,這我可對上號了,但他們又改名了。那么,要是有人無意走了進(jìn)來而不知道背景故事的話,我父親總是教導(dǎo)我說,當(dāng)房間里有大象時,先介紹清楚。如果你們看我的計算機(jī)軸向斷層掃描圖,你會發(fā)現(xiàn)我的肝臟里大約有10個腫瘤,而且醫(yī)生說我只能維持3到6個月的健康了。那是一個月之前的事,所以你們也可以算一算。給我看病的醫(yī)生其中有些是世界上最優(yōu)秀的。麥克風(fēng)不響?那我得大點(diǎn)聲。(調(diào)整麥克風(fēng))好了嗎?好的。這就是現(xiàn)實,我們無法改變它,只能隨機(jī)應(yīng)變。我們無法改變發(fā)給我們的牌,但是可以調(diào)整如何出牌。如果我看起來不夠憂郁和沮喪的話,很抱歉,讓你們失望了。
好了,那今天要談什么呢?是關(guān)于我的童年夢想以及我如何實現(xiàn)了它們。在這方面我一直很幸運(yùn)。我會談?wù)劄槭裁次蚁嘈盼夷軌驂粝氤烧嬉约皫椭藟粝氤烧妫€有一些經(jīng)驗教訓(xùn)——我是個教授,應(yīng)該有一些經(jīng)驗教訓(xùn)的——此外講講你們可以怎么用今天聽到的東西去實現(xiàn)自己的夢想或者助他人夢想成真。等你們年長一些,你們可能會發(fā)現(xiàn)“助他人夢想成真”會更有樂趣。
那么我有過哪些童年夢想呢?這份清單可能與你們的不一致,但我就是這么過來的。體驗零重力,參加全美橄欖球聯(lián)盟,為《世界大百科全書》撰寫一篇文章——我猜你們可以看出我一早就是書呆子了;成為柯克船長,這兒有誰有過這樣的童年夢想?在卡耐基梅隆大學(xué)沒有,不會有的。我還曾想成為在游樂場贏走大型毛絨動物玩具的人,我也想做一名迪士尼的假想工程師。這些夢想并沒有按什么特定的順序排列,盡管我覺得,也許除了第一個以外,它們一個比一個困難。
好了,讓我們來談?wù)勯蠙烨颉N业膲粝胧且獏⒓尤篱蠙烨蚵?lián)盟。你們大部分人不知道我實際上,沒有。是的,我沒能參加全美橄欖球聯(lián)盟,但我從這個沒實現(xiàn)的夢想中得到的,可能比從實現(xiàn)了的夢想中得到的還要多。
我曾有一個教練,我入隊的時候才9歲,是當(dāng)時聯(lián)賽里最小的球員,到現(xiàn)在都是(最小的)。我的這個教練叫吉
姆#8226;格雷厄姆,足有6英尺4英寸高(約1.93米),他以前是在賓夕法尼亞州立大學(xué)校隊打后衛(wèi)的。他是個很守舊的大塊頭,嗯,我是說真的很守舊那種。比如他認(rèn)為向前傳球是使詐。第一天練習(xí),他來了,你們也知道,他塊頭很大,我們都怕他怕得要死。可是他并沒有帶橄欖球。沒球我們怎么練呢?有個小孩子就說:“對不起,教練,可是我們沒有球。”格雷厄姆教練說:“對,一場比賽球場上有多少個球員?”“11人一隊,兩隊就是22個。”格雷厄姆教練又說:“好的,那么在任一特定的時刻有幾個球員觸球呢?”“其中一個。”于是教練說:“對了,所以我們要練習(xí)其他21個人該做的東西。”這是一個很好的故事,因為它講的全是基本功。基本功、基本功、基本功。你必須把基礎(chǔ)打好,要不然那些花俏的東西都是空談。
另外一個有關(guān)吉姆#8226;格雷厄姆的故事,有一次我們做練習(xí),他盯著我不放。你這個做錯了,你那個做錯了,回去再做,你欠我的,練習(xí)完后還要加做俯臥撐。過后一位助理教練走過來說:“格雷厄姆教練對你挺嚴(yán)苛的,是不是?”我說:“是啊。”他說:“這是件好事。”他說:“當(dāng)你搞砸了而沒人對你說些什么,那意味著他們已經(jīng)放棄了。”這就是我終生銘記的一個教訓(xùn)——當(dāng)你把事情搞砸了而再也沒有人勞神告訴你,這處境就很不妙了。人們會批評你其實說明他們?nèi)匀粣壑愫完P(guān)心著你。
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蘭迪·波許(Randy Pausch)是美國卡內(nèi)基梅隆大學(xué)的計算機(jī)科學(xué)、人機(jī)交互及設(shè)計教授。2006年9月,他被診斷出患有胰腺癌。盡管進(jìn)行了手術(shù)和化療,他還是于2007年8月被告知癌細(xì)胞已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)移至肝臟及脾臟,至多可以再存活3到6個月。
美國很多高校在資深教授退休前都會為他們安排講授一堂面向全校學(xué)生的“最后一課”,表達(dá)學(xué)校師生對其的崇敬和感激,讓教授為自己的教學(xué)生涯劃上一個完美的句號。卡內(nèi)基梅隆大學(xué)將其命名為“旅程(Journey)”,希望演講者能和聽眾一起分享自己的個人或?qū)W術(shù)旅程。波許雖然還沒有準(zhǔn)備退休,但是鑒于他的病情,他在2007年9月18日做了題為《真正實現(xiàn)你的童年夢想》的最后一課,這也是“旅程”系列的第一課。
蘭迪·波許教授的大學(xué)同學(xué)李開復(fù)(Google全球副總裁,中國區(qū)總裁)在《引領(lǐng)你的一生》中說:“前不久,我的同學(xué)蘭迪·波許教授在我們的母校卡內(nèi)基梅隆大學(xué)作了一場風(fēng)靡全美的講座,題目是《真正實現(xiàn)你的童年夢想》。《華爾街日報》把這次講座稱為‘一生難覓的最后的講座’。……我和女兒一起看了講座的視頻。看完后,我們感動地含著眼淚,同時又因為感悟和興奮而相視一笑。我們像每一個聽過講座或看過講座視頻的人一樣,激動的心情久久不能平息……”