Accepting fate

I had a difficult weekend and felt really down at times. And I don't really know why. That didn't make the depression any less real. Then I saw this on You Tube. And I realised that I don't have any problems and just need to get on with life. Carpe Diem.

The Independent described this as follows -
These days, most people imagine that when they succumb to the inevitable and utter what must be their "last words", they will have time for little more than a brief, faltering sentence. If they are lucky, it will be shared with a few close family members before being swiftly consigned to the scrapheap of history.
Professor Randy Pausch is not most people, though. In September, the previously unknown computer science expert delivered a remarkable lecture to students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Thanks to the wonders of technology, the hour-long speech did not disappear into the ether, but went on to be heard by millions. It has since changed lives, touched American politics, and is about to spawn a publishing phenomenon.
At the centre of Pausch's remarkable tale is "The Last Lecture," an old academic conceit whereby teachers are asked to imagine they're near death and must therefore sum up the entire collection of wisdom they wish to pass on to their students in a single lecture. Pausch, a 47-year-old father of three, didn't have to imagine anything when he gave his own "last lecture" on 18 September. He had just been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.
In a little over an hour, to a packed lecture-hall, Pausch delivered a deeply moving speech on the subject of "really achieving your childhood dreams." The optimistic philosophy he espoused, in a lecture punctuated by both laughter and tears, resulted in scenes resembling a real-life version of Dead Poets Society. To Americans who have recently, through the likes of Barack Obama, learnt to love public speaking, it has provided a timely reminder of how life ought to be lived.

And I love the line 'Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.' In other words - accept it, learn from it and move on. I'll hang on to that thought.

Here is the talk -