The Last Lecture

Warning: I think this post is more on the sad side, so if you don't want a sad start to your day, then perhaps save this to read later.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Last Lecture is a book co-authored by Randy Pausch, named after his famous last lecture given at Carnegie Mellon University, inspired by a series of talks where people were asked to give a talk as though it were their last chance to impart some wisdom on the world. Now I'm not going to claim to be well-travelled, or all that wise, but I thought I'd give it a go.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Growing up, I ran away from home three times. Once in my third year of high school, I packed my bags full of all the lollies we had accumulated from showbags from the Melbourne Show (I stole my brother's lollies, too, which I now feel terrible about), which I figured would last me at least four or five months if I rationed them out carefully. I have very little knowledge about nutrition, other than I had been told sweets made you fat because they were full of energy, so I figured if I had a pile of sweets, I could eat one a day and have enough energy to keep walking wherever I was going to go. I was in a suburb that I was not familiar with at all, but if I kept walking in the same direction, eventually I'd end up somewhere far enough away that I could start over, away from my family and friends.

It took my family about four hours to find me and bring me back to my uncle's house, in which they sat me down in my cousin's bedroom, and my cousin was told to watch over me. My mum, a bunch of my uncles and aunts came in to try and speak to me to work out what was wrong, but I remained a stone and said nothing. I did give my brother back his lollies though.

The next time I ran away was a couple of years later. This time I was in familiar territory, so I made it even further, and I had a slightly better plan of rations, taking a loaf of bread from the kitchen and all the money that I had squirreled away over the years (about $250). At $2 for a loaf of bread back then, I knew I could last months. My plan was to beg for any kind of crappy work that they'd give me earn enough to buy a train/bus ticket out of here, and one day a plane ticket oversesas so that I could start over without friends or family. It took them most of the night to find me this time. Again, my mum, aunts and uncles tried to find out what was wrong, and again, I kept my stony veneer.

The last time that I ran away was in my second year of university. The only thing I had was my Nokia phone in my pocket. The plan was to make it to the top of the hill overlooking the train tracks, hop on a train that would take me far, far away from friends and family, and everything would be taken care of.

As the first train sped past, I found myself unwilling to move. I watched it leave, and figured that I had 30 minutes to say my goodbyes. I pulled out my phone and began flipping through my contacts. High school friend I had no interest in talking to, another high school friend, my brother who I wasn't speaking to at the time, someone I met in Japanese class that I hadn't seen since first year. The As blazed past, as did the Bs, Cs, Ds and Es. A few more letters down and I hit MrMan1. I can't remember why I called him, but I did. I didn't tell him where I was, or what I was doing, I just asked him to talk. So he did. And I listened. I thought I was completely invisible to this guy, and here he was doing some bizarre favour for me, no questions asked. That''s when I realised how much of an amazing support system I actually had. I was just so caught up in my life, and how hard uni was, and the maybe baby, and the feeling of being so alone despite being surrounded by people, that I never noticed that there are people out there who will drive for hours around the suburbs just to find me because they care about me.

There's a quote I saw on Reddit that made me feel really sad. "We're often so busy growing up that we don't realise our parents are growing old." My parents didn't push me so hard because they wanted to brag to other Asian parents about my grades, they just didn't want me to lead the life that they had, where there was a constant struggle for money, and their job opportunities were severely limited. A lot of the things that I hated them for as a teen are things I now see that they did out of love.

In the past year, with the engagement party, and the wedding, I've realised how many people are important to me, but also how many people I'm important to. Life is too short to be spent worrying that the super executive boss finds out about this project that I'm working on, and maybe he'll be impressed enough to give me a promotion. I know it sounds like I've lost ambition, but I think it's just a priority shift. I would rather spend most of the rest of my life with the people who make me happy, than slaving away for someone who doesn't care about me.

I've expressed my frustrations at my mum's slightly overbearing parenting in the past, and how she never listens to me, but I feel like in the future, I will miss these moments, so I should make the most of them. And worse is my relationship with my dad. I spent so many years scared of him, because my mum did not believe in hitting us as kids. Instead, she would tell us that she would tell my dad that I'd been naughty, and he'd get his belt out and hit us instead. There were so many days that I dreaded my father coming home from work. Now that he has retired, I think things are better between us, and I would also like to work on spending more time with him if possible.

So that's my lovely wisdom for you: life goes by so quickly, that you often don't get a chance to appreciate all the wonderful people who helped you get to where you are today, even if it may not have seemed like they were helping you at the time. There are more people who care about you than you think. And also as a side thing I think is worth working on: there are people in your life that you don't need, and you do what you can to get along with them if you must, but if, in the end you find you are just not compatible, then it's OK to let them leave your life.