Almost all of us have childhood dreams. When our parents ask us what we want to become when we grow up, some would say: “I want to become a doctor someday.” “I want to become a lawyer.” Or some would say “I want to become a famous singer or a famous Hollywood artist like my idol!”

I want to point you out to a remarkable speech by Ryan Pausch, Professor of Computer Science in Carnegie-Mellon University who has pancreatic cancer and died last July 25, 2008.

His last lecture was entitled “How to Achieve Your Childhood Dreams” delivered on September 18, 2007 was watched by millions of people in youtube. Ryan Pausch achieved a lot of his dreams: Walking in zero gravity, designing a theme park for Disney, helped develop Alice, a computer software used by the university, to easily create 3D animations, etc.

Here are some of the remarkable insights that he shared to his audience:

“Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things.” - because the brick walls are there to stop people who don’t want badly enough.

“It’s not about how you achieve your dreams but how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the good karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.

“Almost all of us have childhood dreams; for example, being an astronaut, or making movies or video games for a living. Sadly, most people don’t achieve theirs, and I think that’s a shame. I had several specific childhood dreams, and I’ve actually achieved most of them. More importantly, I have found ways, in particular the creation (with Don Marinelli), of CMU’s Entertainment Technology Center of helping many young people actually achieve their childhood dreams”

Watch the video of his “Last Lecture”

In this lecture, Ryan taught us how to dream. He taught how to pursue our dreams. But the most important of all is that we should abide by the golden rule of life and that is to do good on others. By helping people to achieve their dreams, you are also helping yourself to achieve your own dreams.

I believe in him. If we do good on others, good karma will come back to us. It will lead us the way to achieve our goals and dreams. It will open opportunities for us.

So continue dreaming, do good to others and take action. Let’s achieve our dreams and once achieved, let’s also help others to achieve their own dreams. What a wonderful world it could be if we are all helping each other to achieve our own individual childhood dreams.

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