I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something
from him.
When we are young we have our parents, teachers, elders etc. to guide us
in our every phase of life. But as we grow older we start developing our
own insights and start losing the track of our mentors. Life takes over
us. The teachings starts fading with each passing day. The world starts
seeming colder each day. We lose the real purpose of life. We see our
dreams getting disillusioned. We again hope that life takes us back so
that we can live it the way we wanted to. Well that is not possible!
But yes wouldn’t we like to see that person who acted as our mentor when
we were young? To again ask that person the questions that haunt us &
recieve wisdom for our busy life. Who else but a person who is going to
die can give you the right theory about living. That is what the book
Tuesdays With Morrie is all about. It is a TRUE
story about a young man(the student) and an old man(the mentor) & their
conversation about LIFE
The Book:
Tuesdays with Morrie is a series of lessons a former student has with
his teacher about facing one’s death and living one’s life.
This is a true story of the last days of a wise college professor named
Morrie Schwartz and the author, Mitch Albom, who is an award-winning
sports columnist with the Detroit Free Press. A chance encounter propels
Albom, guiltily and fearfully, to the bedside of Morrie Schwartz, his
sociology teacher at Brandeis University nearly twenty years ago. Once
together again, teacher and student decide to extend the visit over the
remaining months of Morrie’s life. The autor and Morrie Schwartz, decide
to meet on the precious Tuesdays to discuss the important things in life
as they did twenty years earlier.
Their Tuesday encounters explores perennial value issues of everyday life: ’’Family, ’’ ’’Emotions, ’’
’’Money, ’’ ’’Marriage, ’’ ’’Our Culture, ’’ Fear of Aging, ’’ ’’Death, ’’’’Love’’ and finally how life goes on.The interchanges, fortunately, are studded with ’’pearls of wisdom’’ from Morrie. The result is a touching, thought-provoking journey through the philosophy of life, death and the search for meaning.Unfortunately, Albom does not present a full transcript of
the regular Tuesday talks.
Rather, he expands a little on the professor’s aphorisms, which are, to be sure, unquestionable.
But however whatever is presented may give you a good insight into your own life.This story of Mitch
Albom and Morrie Schwartz illuminates many universal truths, including this
law of nature. And perhaps that law has an emotional equivalent as well.
Morrie’s illness and death gives Mitch a perspective that directly changes his life.
The very success that caused him to neglect the most important things becomes the means to send Morrie’s message to all who need reminders of what those things are.
The love between the old man and the younger one is manifest. This book, small and easily digested, stopping just short of the maudlin and the mawkish, is on the whole sincere, sentimental, and skillful.
A great inspirational story.
Some Nice Excerpts(Words of Morrie):
A meaningful life will not be found in the next job or the next car. The
way you get meaning in your life is to devote yourself to helping others
and creating something that gives you purpose.
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.
Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did,
we would do things differently.
Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your
shoulder that asks, ’Is today the day that I will die? Am I ready? Am I
doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?
Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.
I decided what I wanted on my tombstone...A teacher to the last( No
doubts about that, teached more than 1 million people around)