The Last Lecture

I’m reading The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. I’m a little late to the game on this one, but better late than never. The book comes recommended to me by my boss, Hunter, who is a brilliant mind, beautiful soul and an inspiring leader to our team. My work team recently attended the Global Leadership Conference simulcast, and everyone came back super revved up and motivated! (I had just returned from my honeymoon with Aaron, so we were not able to join them.) The Last Lecture was one of the dozens of book recommendations from the conference that Hunter took upon himself to purchase and create a library with for us to read and share with each other.

The Last Lecture is written by a professor at Carnegie Mellon who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. With the gravity of knowing that he now only has a short amount of time to live, he is compelled to take the task of giving a “last lecture” even more serious, and his book touchingly chronicles a blessed life of lessons and truths and love. The advice and reflections drawn from his life are delivered in his final speech and this book as his legacy.

The book is hardly morbid or focusing on “the end”, but rather full of life! I LOVE his inspirational, motivational, positive advice on life. It’s reaffirming to read inarguable, positive views on life from a person who is stricken with an untimely death. It teaches me again to realize daily that life is so short, time is finite, and to gleam the importance of prioritizing people, love and true happiness from relationships, as well as wisdom and service to others, not materials and selfish needs.

One of the greatest takeaways from this book is this concept of the brick wall. What a positive spin on the challenges that life dishes out!

“The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something”

My dreams revolve around this question: how can I serve my partner, family, work team and community better? This is a question that I’m working to answer daily. There are so many false barriers to serving others better. I realize that I am doing the best I can with what I have daily. I realize the good in my dreams, and a “brick wall” on the path to achieving those dreams is just a chance for me to prove how badly I want to serve others through my life daily as I work to achieve my dreams. There is no need to get discouraged, only the need to keep going, and to remain positive and helpful to those around me as well as myself.

I start school tomorrow to pursue a new dream of becoming an architect. I am starting slow and steady with a couple of classes in GIS and History of Architecture. I anticipate many brick walls along the way (no pun intended–Yes, I’m the worst.), but I hope to return back to this truth, that brick walls are just wanting us to prove how bad we truly want something.

x.G

 

 

The Most Important Encounter in Life

Dedicated to the moments in my life that are relevant and impactful enough to have harnessed positive change in my actions or way of thinking.

“The most important encounter in life is the encounter with oneself.”
–Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent, Paris, September 1971. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s

I first heard this quote in L’Amour fou (2010), a beautiful and interesting documentary about the iconic designer’s romantic relationship with his partner Pierre Berge. Such great talent backed and supported by a friend who wouldn’t leave his side despite any downfall–a true friend and true love. It was only after swooning over the film and romanticizing their story that I realized I had been pursuing the conquest of true love the wrong way entirely.

That was September of 2012. At the time, I was 10 months deep into lust a rocky living situation with the first weirdo who gave me any attention after a shitty breakup. That shitty breakup is in reference to a very immature and unhealthy 5 year relationship that consumed the majority of my “adulthood” up until that point. Needless to say, I was an extremely insecure, mindless and depressed little girl to immediately jump from one relationship to that next one. Yeesh.

The exact moment I heard the quote, I saw the words come to life floating out of the TV speakers and suspended in the air in front of my face. I paused the film and I wrote what I just heard on a blue Post-it note to materialize the experience. I read the words over and over again. At that moment, it was so apparent that my efforts to salvage my first unhealthy relationship through my new unhealthy relationship were just misguided attempts at the pursuit of my own happiness. Seeing and hearing these words made me realize that all this time, all I really wanted was to encounter myself. More so, that I needed to encounter myself to discover true love and true happiness. So I did. From that moment on.

I can revisit other times in my life to pinpoint the exact time and place when other epiphanies may have occurred, but nothing is as significant as hearing these words. These words sparked a radical journey of self-growth and enlightenment. I learned to build upon each revelation to follow with research and experiments as I am naturally hungry for knowledge and truth. This knowledge would ultimately provide comfort and strength in the wake of life’s heartbreaks, hushing the drone of internal conflict, anxiety and fear in me to enable myself to continue moving forward as an independent being.

The answers are there inside of you. You just have to ask the right questions and allow yourself to be encountered by you.

x.G