This past week, I finally got around to watching Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture.”
For the 7 or 8 of you that have yet to see this (I’ve got a 4-month-old at the house… what’s your excuse?), the video of the Pausch’s inspirational lecture has been viewed by an estimated 6 million+ people. Pausch’s topic was fulfilling your childhood dreams, made more poignant and powerful by the fact that a) he had fulfilled most of his childhood dreams, and b) he was diagnosed with terminal cancer before giving the lecture.
Pausch died last month, at the age of 47. His lecture is amazing, and it got me thinking: if I were to deliver a lecture, knowing it to be my last before I died, what would I talk about? Then I thought about it another way: Why should my last lecture be special? Why can’t all my lectures be special? Why can’t I just live as if every day, and every event, were my last?
Then I wouldn’t have to do anything differently than I would on any other day. I’d rather have someone be able to show a video of any random moment of me spending time with my daughter, and that be a snapshot of the totality of me as a person, then have to worry about topping myself for some reason before I head off to the great gig in the sky.
In other words, I’d like to have my life be the testament to, well, my life.
What the hell does this have to do with wine? Glad you asked! Assuming you’re still reading, that is. You are? Great! Then allow me to explain…
I’ve written before about the role of mindfulness in heightening your wine appreciation. Basically, give a wine a moment or two of your pure, unadulterated concentration, and it will reveal its entire world to you.
Now, imagine if you treated every glass of wine that you have from here on out as if it might be your last glass. Man, you’d really give it some concentration then.
Sip on that for a while – you might find it brings a greater appreciation of wine into your life.
Even if it’s a glass of Yellowtail.
Check out more ‘Zen Wine’ non-action by the 1WineDude.
Cheers!
(images: rosalynclare.files.wordpress.com, zen-life.org)
I like to think that I do drink every glass of wine as if it might be my last. That’s because I really love wine and unless it’s a bad, flawed wine, I can usually find something to like about it. That brings up the related question, if you knew you were going to die imminently, what would be your last wine? For me, the answer is Champagne. Might as well go out with bubbles in your head.