이번주 강의 ― The Last Lecture (7)

[조국현]

The Last Lecture는
미국 펜실베니아주 피츠버그에 있는 Carnegie Mellon 대학의 Randy Pausch 교수가
젊은 나이에 췌장암으로 시한부 인생을 남겨둔 상황에서
어린 세 자녀를 위해 남긴 기록입니다.


따라서  이 책은 '죽음'의 기록이 아니라 '삶'의 올바른 방향을 제시하는,
인생의 통찰을 줄 수 있을 만한 책인 것 같습니다.


뉴욕 타임즈의 베스트셀러에도 선정되었고요.
훌륭한 책을 토대로 영어도 배우고 인생도 배워보시죠.

The Last Lecture (7)

Chapter II : REALLY ACHIEVING YOUR CHILDHOOD DREAMS / 4 : The Parent Lottery

I WON THE parent lottery.

I was born with the winning ticket, a major reason I was able to live out my childhood dreams.

My mother was a tough, old-school English teacher with nerves of titanium. She worked her students hard, enduring those parents who complained that she expected too much from kids. As her son, I knew a thing or two about her high expectations, and that became my good fortune.

My dad was a World War II medic who served in the Battle of the Bulge. He founded a nonprofit group to help immigrants’ kids learn English. And for his livelihood, he ran a small business which sold auto insurance in inner-city Baltimore. His clients were mostly poor people with bad credit histories or few resources, and he’d find a way to get them insured and on the road. For a million reasons, my dad was my hero.

I grew up comfortably middle class in Columbia, Maryland. Money was never an issue in our house, mostly because my parents never saw a need to spend much. They were frugal to a fault. We rarely went out to dinner. We’d see a movie maybe once or twice a year. “Watch TV,” my parents would say. “It’s free. Or better yet, go to the library. Get a book.”

When I was two years old and my sister was four, my mom took us to the circus. I wanted to go again when I was nine. “You don’t need to go,” my mom said. “You’ve already been to the circus.”

It sounds oppressive by today’s standards, but it was actually a magical childhood. I really do see myself as a guy who had this incredible leg up in life because I had a mother and a father who got so many things right.

We didn’t buy much. But we thought about everything. That’s because my dad had this infectious inquisitiveness about current events, history, our lives. In fact, growing up, I thought there were two types of families:

1) Those who need a dictionary to get through dinner.

2) Those who don’t.

We were No. 1. Most every night, we’d end up consulting the dictionary, which we kept on a shelf just six steps from the table. “If you have a question,” my folks would say, “then find the answer.”

The instinct in our house was never to sit around like slobs and wonder. We knew a better way: Open the encyclopedia. Open the dictionary. Open your mind.

My dad was also an incredible storyteller, and he always said that stories should be told for a reason. He liked humorous anecdotes that turned into morality tales. He was a master at that kind of story, and I soaked up his techniques. That’s why, when my sister, Tammy, watched my last lecture online, she saw my mouth moving, she heard a voice, but it wasn’t mine. It was Dad’s. She knew I was recycling more than a few of his choicest bits of wisdom. I won’t deny that for a second. In fact, at times I felt like I was channeling my dad on stage.

I quote my father to people almost every day. Part of that is because if you dispense your own wisdom, others often dismiss it; if you offer wisdom from a third party, it seems less arrogant and more acceptable. Of course, when you have someone like my dad in your back pocket, you can’t help yourself. You quote him every chance you get.

My dad gave me advice on how to negotiate my way through life. He’d say things like: “Never make a decision until you have to.” He’d also warn me that even if I was in a position of strength, whether at work or in relationships, I had to play fair. “Just because you’re in the driver’s seat,” he’d say, “doesn’t mean you have to run people over.”

Lately, I find myself quoting my dad even if it was something he didn’t say. Whatever my point, it might as well have come from him. He seemed to know everything.