The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture
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The Input of Others
S INCE MY last lecture began spreading on the Internet, I’ve been
hearing from so many people I’ve known over the years—from
childhood neighbors to long-ago acquaintances. And I’m grateful for
their warm words and thoughts.
It has been a delight to read notes from former students and
colleagues. One coworker recalled advice I gave him when he was a nontenured
faculty member. He said I had warned him to pay attention to
any and all comments made by department chairs. (He remembers me
telling him: “When the chair casually suggests that perhaps you might
consider doing something, you should visualize a cattle prod.”) A
former student emailed to say I had helped inspire him to create a new
personal-development Web site titled “Stop Sucking and Live a Life of
Abundance,” designed to help people who are living far below their
potential. That sounded sort of like my philosophy, though certainly
not my exact words.
And just to keep things in perspective, from the “Some-Things-
Never-Change” department, an unrequited crush from high school
wrote to wish me well and gently reminded me why I was way too
nerdy for her back then (also letting slip that she’d gone on to marry a
real doctor).
More seriously, thousands of strangers also have written to me,
and I’ve been buoyed by their good wishes. Many shared advice on
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