And, speaking of friends, the recent death of Randy Pausch touched people across the country who felt they knew him through his video and book,”The Last Lecture.” Randy, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon,understood he was dying from pancreatic cancer and wanted to leave a legacy for his three young children. In the process, his words of wisdom gave all of us inspiration about how to conduct our own lives.

Perhaps from his background with numbers and formulae, Randy was able to boil down the complicated process of “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” the title of his talk, into understandable aphorisms. This week we will focus on several of them in an effort to see how they can help all of us, including Sandwiched Boomers, accomplish our goals and live meaningful lives.

Randy was fond of saying, “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” Even if you are not a game player, his meaning was clear: take responsibility for making the important decisions to solve your problems even when you have not caused them. When you are in the midst of caring for children growing up and parents growing older, you face many challenges created by the situation itself. Yet it is your input in determining how you face those trials and tribulations that gives you some control over the process of caring for your family in flux.

Have you read Randy’s book yet? Let us know how it affected you and how you applied it in your own circumstances as we discuss more of his last lecture this week.