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Chapter 42
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Last Lecture, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Dreams in Reality
Teaching, Learning, and Feedback Loops
Obstacles as Opportunities
Attitude and Positive Behavior
Entitlement vs. Earning
Summary
Analysis
When Randy gets tenure a year early and one of his colleagues asks him how he managed it, Randy says, “It’s pretty simple. Call me any Friday night in my office at ten o’clock and I’ll tell you.” Randy believes that a lot of people want a shortcut, but the best shortcut is the long way, which is two words: “Work hard.” In Randy’s view, hard work is like compounded interest in the bank: the rewards build faster the longer you do it. This is true for work, as well as marriage. If you ask most long-married couples how they did it, they’ll respond, “We worked hard at it.”
Randy didn’t feel entitled to becoming a tenured professor—he simply worked very hard toward that goal and earned the position. Marriage, Randy argues, is just like any other part of life: you must work hard at it in order for the relationship to be successful, rather than feeling entitled to a perfect marriage.
Themes
