Randy Pausch delivered this commencement address just two months before his death from pancreatic cancer at age 47. He had been told he had three to six months to live the previous August and was already on month nine. When someone told him he was 'really beating the Grim Reaper,' these words came out without him even thinking about it. Coming from a man who knew with certainty that his time was almost up, the advice to live fully rather than merely long carried an authority that no other speaker could match.