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Chapter 47
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
If Randy could only give three words of advice, they’d be “tell the truth,” and if he could add three more, they’d be “all the time.” Randy says people lie for lots of reasons, but usually it’s because “it seems like a way to get what they want with less effort.” However, Randy says this perception isn’t true—“like many short-term strategies, it’s ineffective long term. You run into people again later, and they remember you lied to them. And they tell lots of other people about it.” Randy is amazed that people often think they’ve gotten away with lying, even if they haven’t.
Telling lies is an example of not having a good attitude or positive behavior. Though people often tell lies in order to get away with mistakes without spending the effort of rectifying them, the lie often leads to more complications and setbacks in the future. Lies can also damage a person’s reputation, which can take away opportunities that people aren’t even sure why they lost.
Themes
