Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love.
— Wally Lamb
If you had to give a drop-dead good lecture — your parting words before you leave the planet — what would you talk about? That is a great challenge and question. Would it be a lecture on life, love, finding your purpose, developing your mission in life, following your passion, friendship, goals, encouraging children to read, or maybe how to be a great mentor?
That was the challenge before Karol Jackowski in 1987, then dean of students at Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Ind. She was invited to a student-planned program called "The Last Lecture Series." It is an opportunity for professors to share their life lessons and experiences.
She thought about the things that students should do before they die and developed a list that turned into her lecture and the outline for the book, "Ten Things to Do Before You Die."
Fun occupies the top spot on her list of things to do. According to Jackowski, "having more fun than anyone else always comes to mind as the very first thing to do before you die." Fun is her favorite "F" word.
Other things on her list include getting some insight, some depth, writing something at the end of each day, living alone for a while, live like you have nothing to lose and find a place to escape reality. But number one on the list is to have more fun than anyone else. "Nothing exhilarates and sends the soul soaring more than having the best time ever — so much so that face muscles ache from such hearty laughing," she writes. I like that kind of laughter too.
It is the kind of laughter produced by a then-3-year-old (he is a big boy now) who decided that he would not use the name of his aunt (my wife, Sarah) but make up one up for her out of thin air. We were caught off guard when he called her "Mrs. Jones." I still laugh at that incident. He knew how to have fun; most children do. When asked his age, he turned his head slightly to the right, looked up at Sarah with a straight face, held up two fingers and calmly said, "Fourteen."
Having fun requires you first find fun people to be around. "Oddly enough, one of the hardest things to find throughout this life is fun people," Jackowski writes. "Far too few fill our days and nights, and seemingly fewer survive adulthood."
Just what determines a person's fun potential? Jackowski suggests you look out for these things in others: a good appetite, interesting work, good storytelling, a slightly twisted sense of humor, fresh insight and brave choices.
Finding those fun people means listening more and talking less about yourself. Haven't you met people like Jackowski describes, "who appear cursed with no desire at all to raise their attention and conversation above themselves"? They go on and on and on and on … you get the picture. She encourages you to "forget about yourself around other people."
After you find those fun people, consider this suggestion, too — think and talk in terms of their interests. You will become, as Dale Carnegie suggests, a good conversationalist in the process. Another way to have more fun: Don't think about yourself around other people.
You might become a fun person as a result of becoming a person whom others want to be around. Laugh at yourself. Try something new. Observe more. "Pay extra careful attention to the strange, disturbing, boring, moving and hilarious parts of the day," advises Jackowski. "The high-energy centers where potential for release and relief is greatest."
Whatever you do today, have some fun.
P.S.: What would you talk about if invited to share in the last lecture series?
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