Pandy Paunch last lecture is one of the influential and inspiring lectures that has a great impact in one’s life. His articulated ideas are widely used and applicable in our daily life. They teach and mentor people and thus enhancing hard work, recognizing others good and efforts and also the importance of being generous to all. Pandy’s lecture has fundamental lessons that affect our daily attitude in our school, work and generally in our everyday life. They teach us not to get weary or give up if when the situation seems so hard to accomplish.( (“Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams 2016”)
In the Paunch presentation, I learn that it is essential for one to understand the basic of any given idea or project before starting to execute the idea or project. In his presentation, he describes his youthful experience playing football. During his first practice, he says that his coach arrived with no football, intent on developing skills for the players on the field at a given time without a ball in their hands. This is a good lesson that teaches on how to get the fundamentals down, otherwise, the accomplishment of the project or idea will not work. This idea is essential and critical in our career as big ideas that one might have could not come to accomplishment without having a solid foundation. Further, it is important to set goals and objectives for the success of the desired project.
Secondly, critics can be a driving force for one’s life. During Pandy football practice, his coach was so tough and hard for him. His coach criticism enabled him to improve in his Football skills. Similarly, in our own life, people will tend to criticize us in our daily life. It is, therefore, important to use the criticism for our own gain. It will help us to improve things in our life rather than letting it bruise our ego.
Another important point extracted from the lecture is about getting out of our comfort zone. Pandy explain that, for one to play on the field, his coach would put the players into “the most horrifically wrong” position. As a result, they are able to perfect their other skills which allow them to accomplish their target. Most are the time that we tend to stay in our comfort zones and fail to tackle some of the challenges that seem so hard to accomplish. It is, therefore, important to apply Pandy’s lesson in our daily life and we will be able to accomplish most of the challenges that seem difficult to accomplish.
While the end of life experience is universal, the view or behaviors which are associated with death and grief are culturally bound. All cultures have developed different ways to cope with dying, the deceased body, honoring death and also the final arrangement for the body and burial. The Scotland, America and African cultures view dying in a different way. They believe that there is life after death and thus the death is a transitional stage of other life. The deceased body is well preserved and different rituals are performed which act as a respect toward the death. Even though the person is death, they believe that the body deserve respect and thus should be given a decent burial.
The Processes, practices, and rituals within the countries’ cultural differs in the way they deal with death and dying. The religion is essential in observation of death and dying of individuals. It plays role for most victims as their answers to religious questions form their view of life, death and meaning. Some religions give individual more power over life than others. Others give certain people power over life whereas other give spirits more power over death than the living. Some cultures are not concerned about preserving the body and therefore, the embalming of the deceased is common while in other cultures, the body is preserved. Some believe that the spirit of a person doesn’t die; therefore, some people are buried with a gift and sentimental things as a symbolic that the deceased still live amongst the people. (Lobar, JoAnne, and Dorothy, 44)
There are benefits of connecting with others throughout life and particularly during Late Adulthood. Through connecting with other people, individuals are able to learn different skills and knowledge. There are essential benefits that come up with sharing as people share ideas that help one in his/her life. Most of the challenges in life are tackled through sharing of ideas. During late adulthood, people are at an old age and thus require support from others in order to meet their basic needs and also to cater for their health. At a late adulthood, people are able to take care of each other for good health and living.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Theory argues five stages of dying and death (Kubler-Ross, p. 11). In 1969, Elizabeth wrote about death and dying. She described various stages of dying which are; denial and isolation which is used by the most patient. They tend to deny to accept facts, reality, information, etc. relating to the situation that is concerned. It is a defensive mechanism and is perfectly natural. People are locked in this stage when dealing with a traumatic change in their life. Anger is another stage in which people respond to the case of death as a way of expression. They are anger at God where they feel as if other are more deserving, envy for others; where they feel other people don’t care and it is as if they are enjoying while the dying person is experiencing pain. There is also anger towards Nurses, doctors, and families. Another stage is about bargaining which is a hard stage and is often considered to be between the patient and God. It assumes that if God didn’t respond to anger, by acting “good” will work to the situation. Another stage is about depression where people mourn for the losses. People get depressed after a loss of their beloved one and similarly, the dying person get depressed after knowing they are dying. Another stage is about acceptance. People consist giving up on something for one has no control over the situation. It generally takes a period of time to reach this stage but eventually they are forced to accept the circumstances. Hope is the essential factor for all these stages as it is through hope that people are able to overcome the difficult times. The Elizabeth Kubler-Ross model plays part in late adulthood where individuals are not able made to understand the reality of life because they have limited time on earth. It helps us live each day to the fullest as if is the last day here on earth.
In conclusion, it is important to inspire and mentor people just as Pandy did during his last time in life. People should focus on helping others as they improve themselves. There is no need to give up. Since we live limited time on Earth, it is important to live each day to the fullest as if is the last day of one’s life. By that, we will be able to focus on important things that we have to face in each day.