Never, ever underestimate the importance of having fun.
Randy PauschRead
The great thing about working out at a gym is that if you put in effort, you get very obvious results. The same should be true of college. A professor’s job is to teach students how to see their minds growing in the same way they can see their muscles grow when they look in a mirror.
Interpretation
Effort in learning leads to visible growth, just like physical training.
Randy Pausch emphasizes that just as individuals can witness tangible results from their physical workouts at the gym, the same should apply to academic pursuits in college. A professor's role is to facilitate this learning process, helping students recognize and appreciate the growth of their intellect and understanding, mirroring the visible development of their physical bodies when they exercise.
In practice
In a speech about personal development, you might quote this to inspire students.
Never, ever underestimate the importance of having fun.
I'm attempting to put myself in a bottle that will one day wash up on the beach for my children.
It's hard to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer - people who get it don't live long enough.
Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want
Cancer didn't change me at all. I know lots of people talk about the life revelation. I didn't have that.
I think that we all stand on the dartboard of life. Roughly 30,000 people a year are going to catch a dart labeled pancreatic cancer, and that's unfortunate. It's not what I would have chosen. But I in no way feel like I deserved it.
When I was 11, I knew that I wanted to write a kid's book and tell the world what it was like being deaf.
When I was coaching I always considered myself a teacher. Teachers tend to follow the laws of learning better than coaches who do not have any teaching background. A coach is nothing more than a teacher. I used to encourage anyone who wanted to coach to get a degree in teaching so they could apply those principles to athletics.
Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.
The students that, like the wild animal being prepared for its tricks in the circus called 'life', expects only training as sketched above, will be severely disappointed: by his standards he will learn next to nothing.
It's very important for the parents of young autistic children to encourage them to talk, or for those that don't talk, to give them a way of communicating, like a picture board, where they can point to a glass of milk, or a jacket if they're cold, or the bathroom. If they want something, then they need to learn to request that thing.
And if we want to achieve our goal, then let us empower ourselves with the weapon of knowledge and let us shield ourselves with unity and togetherness.
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