Tuesdays with Morrie
By Mitch Albom
Published Year: 1997 [ Doubleday Publishers ]
Page Count: 192 pages
Medium Used: Paperback
Genre : Spirituality, Religion, Self Help, Death, Philosophy, 2024-read.
Rating: 5/5 🌟
Some authors write hundreds or thousands of pages to gain the same amount of traction this small book has achieved. It proves that content and writing style are much more important than the page count or adding senseless twists and turns.
This book, surprisingly, doesn't sound preachy. A young man and his dying, decaying teacher from youth, their enlightening and inspiring discussions over many topics like death, aging, love, meaning of life. I think more than the teaching points - which I mentioned below - the teacher's life story and his final days were more impactful.
Mitch finds out that his most favorite and much cherished professor from college is afflicted with ALS disease and is terminally ill. So he starts paying him a visit - on Tuesdays every week. They discuss lot of things and Mitch diligently makes notes which he shares with the reader through this book. The teacher, Morrie, is an endearing and warm personality and we see him through the lens of Mitch who loves him dearly. Though this man, Morrie, is not a saint or a spiritual guru, we listen to him nevertheless. Its in the wisdom he has accumulated through his years and the maturity he has demonstrated ever since his youth.
For my part, I don't indulge in a lot of thought about death and what happens next. This is because I am a firm believer in the concept of reincarnation, karma theory and passing over onto a next life. That is not the case with many people in the west or frankly, countries which have dominant Christianity or Islamic followers. They believe in one life and a eternity of heaven or hell .. which could put a lot of emphasis on this one life they have. It's either a make or break and I can't imagine I would be able to reconcile myself with that belief.
Some take aways from the book:
0. Giving, rather than taking, is living.
1. Only by learning how to die, do we learn, how to live.
2. If we live every day with an awareness of impending death, we will not waste time in irrelevant tasks. We will grow to live more spiritually.
3. Detachment from an emotion doesn't mean blocking it out. It means experiencing it fully and thoroughly that it stops bothering anymore. That it doesn't cause anymore pain or grief or any other emotion.
4. We have to embrace aging because growing old also means become more wise, knowledgeable and mature. People who yearn for past and youth have lived unfulfilled lives.
5. The difference between wanting and needing something. People being brainwashed into wanting more and more, the rootlessness and inadequacy of materialism. How it is better to spread love and share what one has with others in need.
6. People don't fully understand who they are or what they want from a partner. As a result they are forming transient relationships and marriages are failing.
7. Everyone takes birth and inexorably dies. So how much different can one person, be it woman or man, be from another ? Embrace community, humanity and love one and all.
8. Its not enough to forgive others for their mistakes. One must also learn to forgive self and stop beating oneself up for things undone, mountains unclimbed and accomplishments unfinished.
Morrie's wisdom felt surreal in this day and age, where everyone is running after "more and more" material things. Mitch's compassion and love for his dying professor moved me to tears. Despite the fact that the teacher has lived to be a near eighty years, I wanted his life to be prolonged .. just so that Mitch and he would get few more tuesdays to bond. 💗
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