A dream for my son makes me better

By | January 24, 2010

I was on the phone with a friend. She is into all this vision-mission kind of stuff, and very generous about sharing her learnings in life. It does get a little difficult to get her to see another perspective, but what I appreciate is her generosity in sharing all she has.

It was very rewarding to speak with her after many years. She is a teacher (ouch!) of the new style – more interactive, more experiential…. When she heard how involved I am with Nisarga – I’ve quit working mostly to be more with him, changed my work to what I can do while he is sleeping or otherwise engaged, I love spending time with him, I desire to support him the best I can in life, etc. She made a few very important suggestions.

One of them is what remains with me with overwhelming intensity. She asked me to have a ‘role model’ in my mind as what I would like my son to grow up into, and tell her about it. Such a person must be someone I respect and find inspiring.

For all my unschooling talk, my role model was the late Prof. Randy Pausch of the Carnegie Mellon University. A guy complete with a Ph.D. who did jobs, who taught students…. I think it thrilled her, till I described him further. I have met Dr. Randy Pausch exactly once, in a YouTube video. It is an hour long video of his lecture now famous as the last lecture.

I have never met him, and he is now dead. He died of cancer. So what is it in this man that a mother wants her child to grow into? It is his humanness. It is his passion, his determination, his generosity.

See for yourself:

Here is a link to the transcript if thus lecture that was seen by over six million people and continues to be an inspiration.

As I look at this dream for my son, I am forced to see that I must begin living it myself, if I have to bring it to reality. I am a better person for going through this ‘exercise’.

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