Pausch embraced this cliché openly — 'I love clichés,' he said — because facing actual death had stripped away any pretense about what matters. He told graduates that he had done a lot of really stupid things in his life, and none of them bothered him. All the mistakes, the dopey things, the times he was embarrassed — they didn't matter. What gave him solace was knowing that pretty much anytime he got a chance to do something cool, he tried to grab for it.