I just finished the excellent, critically acclaimed book, The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch. I'm sure you've heard of the story - Randy was a Carnagie Mellon professor who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Despite his short time left, Randy gave the ultimate gift to his students, faculty, staff, family, and friends - a "last lecture" to remember forever. Randy's lecture ran the gammot of life lessons learned, mistakes made, and the things not to take for granted. Excellent read...highly recommended. Among his incredibly insightful thoughts and stories, one in particular stood out to me...I thought it was good food for thought:
'When I was finally dismissed, one of the assistant coaches came over to reassure me. "Coach Graham rode you pretty hard, didn't he?" he said. I could barely muster a "yeah." "That's a good thing," the assistant told me. "When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they've given up on you."
'The lesson has stuck with me my whole life. When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better.'
