Motivation

Sometimes, no matter what your profession, it's easy to lose sight of your goals as you become lost in the day-to-day frustrations of building your career. This is as true in science as it is in any other field. When I tell people I do cancer research, I'm always met with genuine awe and admiration. Initially my ego swells, but I try to be quick and deflate my pride by focusing on the fact that daily, there's really not much glamour in being a scientist. The hours are long, the pace is plodding, and data remains elusive. Often, deft as we may be at winning people's admiration, one's motivation suffers as a result.

But then someone like Dr. Randy Pausch comes along and reminds you why you got into science in the first place. Dr. Pausch is a Carnegie-Mellon professor, husband, and father to three. He will also most certainly die within the next few months as a result of his battle with metastatic pancreatic cancer, one of the most difficult-to-treat and therefore deadliest cancers out there. Last year, he took part in CMU's "Last Lecture Series," in which professors are invited to speak as if they only could make one final lecture. Unfortunately, the premise for Dr. Pausch is far from hypothetical. Shortly thereafter he performed a shortened version for Oprah on her show:



There is so much one can say about Dr. Pausch's talk, but few words could do justice to a man who shows such courage and humility in the face of death. What he has to say is not only motivating to those in the biomedical research fields, but to all who have dreams, who have families, who succeed, who struggle. He is a man who has realized what life should be about, however abbreviated it may become. He reminds those in the medical field why they got into the business in the first place, and he reminds everyone else that things really aren't so bad. Dr. Pausch's full "Last Lecture" from Carnegie-Mellon is posted below.