Are You in the Tigger Camp?

Last week I wrote about Randy Pausch and how he encouraged us to not be afraid to dream. Rather, he said, “Dream big.” Another of Pausch’s important messages was about attitude toward life in general. Even though Randy Pausch died of pancreatic cancer at age 47, a little less than two years after being diagnosed, he was an inspiration for finding purpose and happiness in each day.

When Pausch spoke of his cancer, he said:

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

Pausch believed that we can choose to be happy. He gave this advice to parents:

As I see it, a parent’s job is to encourage kids to develop a joy for life and a great urge to follow their own dreams. The best we can do is to help them develop a personal set of tools for the task.

His advice to everyone was:

. . . there’s a decision we all have to make, and it seems perfectly captured in the Winnie-the-Pooh characters created by A. A. Milne. Each of us must decide: Am I a fun-loving Tigger or am I a sad-sack Eeyore? Pick a camp.

Here’s another moving Randy Pausch video that reminds us to live each day fully.