The best piece of advice I ever heard....

I can't claim it was given to me directly. I read it one weekend morning in my favourite local cafe, Zoran's in St Margarets, while lazing over the Sunday newspapers. It was an interview with computer scientist, Randy Pausch who, after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2006, went on to wow a 500-strong audience at Carnegie Mellon Hall with what was called The Last Lecture just a year later. The theme of the talk was Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. In it, Randy went on to impart all the wisdom he had accumulated about life, from the unique perspective of staring death in the face every day. On a personal note, the lecture was, he said, advice he wanted to pass on to his three young children, who he knew he would never get to see grow up.

There are many of pearls of wisdom in Randy's talk, some of which I've listed at the bottom of this blog. But the one piece of advice that stood out for me was something he wanted to pass on to his daughter, on the subject of dating men. Randy said: "When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it's really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do."

That's stuck with me over the past couple of years and has certainly changed the way I perceive the whole dating experience. And if you want to do a quick litmus test of whether that man you're interested in really feels the same way, then it's certainly an eye opener!  But, the bottom line is, isn't that advice just as applicable to women as it is to men, in fact to human beings as a whole? Aren't we all sometimes guilty of saying something we don't mean and promising something we may never deliver on? Some of us just do it more frequently than others.
 
Words are easy, they can fly off the tongue with little effort, all those promises and good intentions. But just because you say it is, doesn't make it so.
 
Now, I can't control what people in my life say and do. But it's true - it's the things they do or don't do that make an impression, rather than the things they say. I won't stamp my feet and demand someone do what they're say they're going to do. But I will think twice about believing that person again.
 
In other words, don't give empty promises and then be shocked, hurt and angry when people give up believing you are a man or a woman of your word.
 
Being a man or a woman of our word... it actually feels good. To say you'll do something and always, always deliver on that. To underpromise and overdeliver, isn't that far better than the other way round?

Randy died in July 2008. In his last year he went on to realise many of his childhood dreams, and also campaigned to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer - a man clearly not just of words, but of action too.
 
Best wishes
 
Dawn

Randy Pausch - The Last Lecture:
 
"The key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have. "
 
"Wait long enough and people will surprise and impress. When you're pissed off at someone and you're angry at them, you just haven't given them enough time. Just give them a little more time and they almost always will impress you."

"If I could only give three words of advice, they would be, "Tell the Truth." If I got three more words, I'd add, "All the time."