Courtesy of UrbanDictionary.com:
1. flava - Means "style". From "Flavor".
ie. What's yo flava?
2. flava - Style. Pure and simple.
ie. "My DJ skills got mad flava!"
3. flava - What makes a person different. Personality, style, a certain je ne sais quoi: whatever they've got that makes him/her unique from the next person.
ie. Sista's got real sweet flava.
So anyway, what's your flavor of literature? I'm the type of person (or maybe my type doesn't exist really) who likes to peruse non-fiction works related to, but not limited to, success / happiness / leadership / self improvement / anything insightful. There is a great abundance of helpful information out there. The hard part is to find it presented in a manner worth spending the time to read. Does the author appeal to your life? Is the style of writing colloquial? Are the examples relevant?
My latest pick up is a book titled The Last Lecture. It's a book about the "last lecture" of Professor Randy Pausch who was diagnosed with terminal cancer with only a few months left to live. But why did I choose to buy this book and read it? Quite easily, it was due to the introduction...
So, how to spend my very limited time? ...
The less obvious part is how to teach my children what I would have taught them over the next twenty years. they are too young now to have those conversations. All parents want to teach their children right from wrong, what we think is important, and how to deal with the challenges life will bring. We also want them to know some stories from our own lives, often as a way to teach them how to lead theirs. My desire to do that led me to give the "last lecture" at Carnegie Mellon University.
These lectures are routinely videotaped. I knew what I was doing that day. Under the ruse of giving an academic lecture, I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children. If I were a painter, I would have painted for them. If I were a musician, I would have composed music for them. But I am a lecturer. So I lectured.
I lectured about the joy of life, about how much I appreciated life, even with so little of my own left. I talked about honesty, integrity, gratitude, and other things I hold dear. And I tried very hard not to be boring.
I'm going to leave it at that. Buy this book. I'm going to continue reading it....
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