When Meagan Wolschon came to Grand Valley State University as a transfer student, she said she had preconceived notions of what a university professor would be like.

“I assumed (university professors would be) snobby, unrelateable, maybe mean,” Wolschon said.

But when she met Darren Walhof, a political science professor at GVSU, Wolschon said her beliefs were broken down.

Wolschon introduced Walhof last Thursday, during his ‘Last Lecture,’ a series hosted each semester by GVSU’s Student Senate.

The idea behind ‘Last Lecture’ spawned from Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch, who gave his own hypothetical last lecture following a life-altering diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer.

Once Pausch’s speech hit YouTube, it was turned into a book, co-written with Jeffery Zaslow.

Walhof began speaking about hap, a noun meaning “chance, a person’s luck, fortune, fate” dating back to the 13th century. Although we no longer use the word hap on its own, it is in many words that are still part of our vocabulary — such as happenstance, haphazard, mishap, perhaps and happy — Walhof said.

Walhof “introduced” his audience to some people in his life – his nephew with Down syndrome, his partner’s brother with autism and cerebral palsy and his own father, who was diagnosed with an incurable and rare neurological disease in his 60s.

“Conner, Greg, my father,” Walhof said. “Each one is dependent on others to a degree that most of us are not, or at least are never required to acknowledge. None of them can live without constant supervision and constant assistance. … Being in their presence makes us uncomfortable. This discomfort has something to do with hap.”

Often in bad situations, people ask questions like, “Why us?” or “Why them?” but instead, Walhof chooses to acknowledge the good, despite the bad that may come along with it.

“By hap, Conner was born into a devoted family, with parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins who love and care for him,” he said. “Similarly, Greg, by hap, was born into a loving family that had the resources and, most importantly, the bull-headedness to pursue educational and living opportunities for him at a time when autism was a little-known condition and kids with severe autism were sent off to institutions.”

Additionally, he said, Conner and Greg view the world differently than others.

“Both Conner and Greg themselves seem to think only about the good cards they have,” Walhof said. “They accept the smallest things as surprise gifts – a bus ride, a chance to go swimming, clapping with a friend, a cup of coffee, a bowl of popcorn.”

The point of everything Walhof was trying to say? Every person is dealt a different hand.

“In other words, your hap might be good or your hap might be bad,” he said. “Most of the time your hap will be some mixture of the two.”

With this, there are many unknowns, he said – what mixture of hap will be given, or the mixture of hap that other people are dealing with. Walhof said though the idea may not be new for people to understand, it is still often hard to remember.

He said “hap-awareness” opens a person to friendship, forgiveness and risk-taking.

“If you lack hap-awareness, you will become a total douche,” Walhof joked.

Although it is more difficult to be hap-aware in a world with bad models, Walhof encouraged his listeners to challenge what is given to us and seek our own hap-awareness.

“First, spend some time with those who seem to have more than their share of bad hap,” he said. “Go volunteer at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen; tutor kids in struggling schools; visit those from your church or neighborhood who are having a rough go. … Don’t pity them, don’t condescend to them — just go and get to know them.”

Another suggestion he gave is to find someone with a seemingly good hap-awareness.

“Observe them, talk to them, watch how they deal with good and bad fortune, then imitate them,” Walhof said.

As Walhof said his final words and thanked the crowd for listening, he received a standing ovation.

“We put it on so often because it really is an awe inspiring event and the professors put a lot of work into their lectures making the event very deep and very touching,” Gorman said.

This is exactly what Walhof seemed to do, and left students with this note:

“Cut yourself some slack because of tough breaks that have come your way, but also take stock of the many unwarranted privileges you’ve been given,” he said.

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