I’m so glad that I read Tuesdays with Morrie at this moment in my life, as a twenty-one year old college student, on my quest to read as much as possible and absorb as much wisdom as possible from the pages I flip through in the middle of my gap year, in the middle of my college career. Tuesdays with Morrie has become my favorite book over this past weekend, and I have a feeling that it will be one of my favorites for the rest of my life, as I plan on re-reading this at different stages of my life. Reading the conversations between the author Mitch Albom and Morrie Schwartz, the eponymous professor, felt like sipping a warm cup of tea. Each chapter, each sip, a heartfelt hug and a sage piece of advice.
Quotes/Moments That Made Me Think:
- “People see me as a bridge. I’m not as alive as I used to be, but I’m not yet dead. I’m sort of… in-between. I’m on the last great journey here — and people want me to tell them what to pack.”
I realized that the reason why I’m drawn to reading memoirs (like When Breath Becomes Air, and I think Tuesdays with Morrie should sort of count as a memoir, although it is written from the perspective of Mitch, his student) is because I want to know “what to pack” — there is so much to learn from the dying, who inevitably dedicate much of their remaining time and energy into thinking about life, death, and the liminal phase in which they find themselves.
- “It’s horrible to watch my body slowly wilt away to nothing. But it’s wonderful because of all the time I get to say good-bye. Not everyone is so lucky.”
I’d always thought that fighting a long battle with a debilitating disease was one of the worst ways to die. How cruel is it that someone would have to suffer so much for so long? Each day, slowly losing some aspect of their bodily and/or cognitive functions (and therefore, to some extent, their humanity)? The way that Morrie called himself “lucky” struck me — he may be the most positive person I have never known. It struck me because I thought it was beautiful how Morrie thought of his dying days as blessed time that afforded him the time to say goodbye to the people he loved, not as some form of a long, drawn-out torture. Although the nature of the disease is different (Morrie had ALS), I couldn’t help but think of my grandma, who’s now been living with Parkinson’s for almost a decade. We visit her every weekend at her hospice, but it’s nothing like Tuesdays with Morrie. We stand outside a glass window because the hospice cannot allow any visitors to come inside. My grandma’s facial expressions (or lack thereof) — the only way we’ve been able to communicate with her since she lost her ability to speak a few years ago — are obscured by her mask and the thick glass window. I wish I could hear what she is thinking during our visits — the questions she has for us, the stories she wants to tell us, and the life lessons she may want to impart.
- “…the culture doesn’t encourage you to think about such things until you’re about to die. We’re so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks — we’re involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?”
This novel was on my Reading List because I had seen it on some ‘Books that Changed My Life’-esque lists on the Internet and having devoured it in just two days, I can see why it has made that list for many people. I hope to read this once every few years and take the time to really reflect on my life in my mid-twenties, late-twenties, thirties, forties, and so on.
- “All younger people should know something. If you’re always battling against getting older, you’re always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow.”
Morrie embraces aging — “as you grow, you learn more.” When asked if he envies the youth, he says yes, but that he feels the envy, then lets it go. He can do this because he is actually every age, up to his own. Part of him is every age because he has lived through all of them and knows what it’s like. I kind of felt called out in reading this chapter because I’ve dreaded getting older ever since my 18th birthday. My 20th birthday was especially hard for some reason because I didn’t like the idea of not being a teenager anymore — I felt like there were so many ‘teenager things’ I hadn’t done yet. My mom told me that entering my twenties is actually something to be incredibly excited about, not something to mourn, and she’s right. And Morrie’s right. Having come to terms with the way that COVID-19 had impacted the first one or two years of my twenties, I was actually much more at peace about ‘getting older’ on my 21st birthday than I was on my 20th birthday. To be honest, sometimes, I still can’t believe that I’m 21 years old, and getting older still scares me to varying extents. While celebrating youth can be a fun and beautiful thing to do, I think it might actually be healthier to remove some of the emphasis we put on our youth — because the more emphasis we put on our youth, the more afraid we will be to lose our youthfulness as we get older. I had never thought of the idea of aging as owning every age that you’ve been up until your current age, but it was something that made me reconsider the way I view aging.
- “People are only mean when they’re threatened ... And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself.”
Morrie believed in the inherent good of people.
- “Death ends a life, not a relationship.”
Because you live on in the hearts of everyone you touched and nurtured while you were here. “Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”
- A story about waves in the ocean, on page 179.
First Wave: “We’re all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn’t it terrible?”
Second Wave: “No, you don’t understand. You’re not a wave, you’re part of the ocean.”
What a beautiful way to think about our life and the universe.
Morrie asks Mitch a series of questions upon their reunion:
- “Have you found someone to share your heart with?”
- “Are you giving to your community?”
- “Are you at peace with yourself?”
- “Are you trying to be as human as you can be?”
…which forces Mitch to realize how dissatisfied he is with his life. He once promised myself he would never work for money, that he would join the Peace Corps, that he would live in beautiful, inspirational places. Instead, he had been living a pretty monotonous, compromised life.
“I traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck, and I never even realized I was doing it.”
If I ever feel like my life is looking more like Mitch’s before his reunion with Morrie, I hope I remember to re-read this book and ask myself these same questions that Morrie asked Mitch. I hope that doesn’t happen, and I’m fairly confident it won’t, but even so, reflection can only help.
Lessons from Morrie
- “The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”
- “The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
- “… I mourn what I’ve lost. I mourn the slow, insidious way in which I’m dying. But then I stop mourning. I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories I’m going to hear … I don’t allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears, and that’s all.”
- “We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don’t satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted.”
- Fully and completely experience all emotions. Then, say “I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.” … “Same for loneliness: you let go, let the tears flow, feel it completely — but eventually be able to say, “All right, that was my moment with loneliness. I’m not afraid of being lonely, but now I’m going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I’m going to experience them as well.”
- “I believe in being fully present. That means you should be with the person you’re with. When I’m talking to you now, Mitch, I try to keep focused only on what is going on between us. I am not thinking about something we said last week. I am not thinking of what’s coming up this Friday … I am talking to you. I am thinking about you.”
- “There are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don’t respect the other person, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don’t know how to compromise, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can’t talk openly about what goes on between you, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be a like. And the biggest one of those rules? Your belief in the importance of your marriage.”
I want to meet a Morrie sometime during my college career. I’ve had some amazing professors, but none that I’ve been able to really connect with. It would be really nice to have a mentor like Morrie. I also want to be a Morrie. Someone who has a grateful, positive attitude toward life and knows what is important in life, despite what the culture tells us. Someone who is at peace with oneself and nature. Someone who knows that one is not a wave, but a part of the ocean.
