Pursuing and achieving your childhood dreams is ostensibly the book’s central theme. Because the content of Pausch’s lecture included experiences and insights gleaned from his own life, he was able to note the important patterns of his childhood desires, how his parents supported his dreams, how he accomplished these dreams, and how he helped enable his students achieve their own goals.

In recounting his life experiences, however, Pausch isn’t providing a roadmap specifically for achieving dreams but a guide for how to live a life that enables you to do so. He identifies several traits and attitudes that serve this goal, such as establishing specific dreams, choosing to think positively, collaborating with others, working hard, expressing gratitude, and accepting help from others.

Even unrealized dreams can serve a greater purpose. Although Pausch never achieved his dream of playing in the NFL, he notes, “I sometimes think I got more from pursuing that dream, and not accomplishing it, than I did from many of the ones I did accomplish” (35). Pausch opts to see the positive in this scenario, reframing it as a stepping stone to something greater. Though he didn’t successfully achieve this particular dream, it taught him tenacity and perseverance, and this ambition and positive thinking would propel him to success in another areas.