Tuesdays With Morrie
Author: Albom, Mitch
Publisher: Bantam Books
The Japanese drama, One Liter of Tears, touched me in the willing of hanging on living and the optimistic life. This book, Tuesday with Morrie, moved me in the realization of life and the optimistic thought on dying.
Are you disgusted by the overtime-culture as I am? Does the thought of putting the matter on living rather than overworking shames you as me? Fortunately, Tuesdays With Morrie told me that I was not the sick one, but the culture was.
The story of Tuesdays With Morrie is about an old professor, Morrie Schwartz, was dying, and he shared his experience and wisdom. Instead of inculcating the do’s and don’ts what our culture does over and over in us, he quested why we did, indicated what we lost, and encouraged us trying to chase what we really want.
The author, Mitch Albom, was given a wonderful gift from his old professor, his coach, Morrie, gave his player last class which needs none textbook, fourteen life’s lessons on “The World”, “Feeling Sorry For Yourself”, “Regrets”, “Death”, “Family”, “Emotions”, “The Fear Of Aging”, “Money”, “How Love Goes On”, “Marriage”, “Our Culture”, “Forgiveness”, “The Perfect Day” and last lesson – “Good-Bye”
There are two scenes appear in the movie The Weatherman, the “living funeral” Morrie held, and the “touchy-feely” course which the students were to stand, facing away from their classmates, and fall backward, relying on another student to catch.
“Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. you take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.” (page 40)
“The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We’re teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it. Create your own.” (page 35)
Taiwanese culture, the overworking-culture, forces us to contribute our life to our employer. The status-culture encourages us to be the boss, the manager, to accumulate the fortune, to compete against another corporation in low-prices form exploiting others. The competing-culture restricts our studying to take exams on and on, to matriculate at famous universities and institutes for receiving enough training and a certification of competence, to work, to produce, to be a worth, authorized equipment of the capital society. The luxury-culture lures us into chasing new famous brand product; the cash-credit-card is advertised here, there and everywhere of Taiwan where is set the ability of shopping and identifying the brand as the criterion for measuring the taste of people.
“This is okay with you, isn’t it? Men crying?” (page 51)
“We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, ‘Love is the only rational cat’”. (page 52)
“Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?” (page 53)
“I give my self a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life.” “I don’t let myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears, and that’s all.” (page 57)
I counted how often I feel sorry for myself and how long I extricate from low tide. Compares with Morrie who was likened to “tender sequoia”, they take me too much time in self-pity!
“We don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this I want? Is something missing?” “You need someone to probe you in that direction. It won’t just happen automatically.” (page 65)
The importance is considering what we would regret what if today is our last day on earth, then grasping the last chance to chase at present!
“You strip away all that stuff and you focus on essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently.” “Learn ho to die, and you learn how to live.” (page 83)
Fancy there is a little bird on our shoulder, and ask it as Morrie asked: "Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? am I being the person I want to be?”
“The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn’t the family.” “poet Auden said, ‘Love each other or perish.’ ” (page 91)
How to detach from negative emotions, such as horror, painful? As Morrie said “By throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself do dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’ “ (page 104)
What is aging? Is it a procedure going to die, going to be wither and forgetful?
“It’s like going back to being a child again. Someone to bathe you. Someone to lift you. Someone to wipe you. We all know to be a child. It’s inside all of us. For me, it’s just remembering how to enjoy it.” (page 116) “Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.” (page 118)
“You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.” “As I’m sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you’re looking for, no matter how much of them you have.” (page 125) “If you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will envy you. Status will get you nowhere.” (page 127)
As Chinese wisdom, these are “external things” at all. In Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, the old man tried very hard to fight with the big fish, and he eventually got the prize, the enormous fish, but the brilliant prize lured lots of sharks’ attacks and eating.
“Everyone is in such a hurry. People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running.” (page 136)
Chinese ancient, Mencius, who believed in the inherent good in people as Morrie did.
“People are only mean when they’re threatened, and that’s what our culture does. Every people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of our culture. Which is why I don’t buy into it.” (page 154) “Here’s what I mean by building your own little sub-culture. I don’t mean you disregard every rule of our community.” “The little things, I can obey. But the big things—how we think, what we value—those you must choose yourself. You can’t let anyone—or any society—determine those for you.” (page 155)
“It’s not just other people we need to forgive. We also need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done. You can’t get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened.” (page 166)
“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” (page 174)
“The first wave says, ‘You don’t understand! We’re all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn’t it terrible?’
“The second wave says, ‘No, you don’t understand. You’re not a wave; you’re part of the ocean.’ “ (page 179)
“Okay, then.” (page 186)
This is the way how the coach, Morrie, and his player, Mitch, say good-bye to each other.
Morrie never gave up his life, he fight against the disease and dying without fear. In Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea, the old has said that “A man can be destroyed, but not defeated.” Morrie is a man definitely!
In the end, the sound “You talk, I’ll listen” Mitch heard. The end of the book, ”The teaching goes on” is in my sight as my eyes became moist for the sentence on Morrie’s tombstone, “A Teacher to the Last”.
This sentiment writen down on 12th Sep, 2006, Tuesday.
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