Tuesdays With Morrie As A Reflection About Life

Too often, people get caught up chasing the wrong things in life or focusing on things which they soon found pointless and feeling regret. “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom, a book that not only focus on an old man’s last words but also talk about his experiences in life and how to live one’s life to the fullest.

Tuesdays with Morrie is a 1997 non-fiction novel by an American writer Mitch Albom. He was a successful sports journalist for The Detroit Free Press, he had a daily radio show in Detroit, a wife, a large house and friends, he thought he had it all. Many years after his college graduation, Mitch learns that one of his favorite professors, Morrie Schwartz, has ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) where he will soon be unable to move or do anything. Mitch began visiting Morrie every Tuesday. Their discussions were different each week; things like regrets, death, love, money; and most importantly was to discuss Morrie’s view on the meaning of life. “I buried myself in accomplishments, because with accomplishments, I believed I could control things, I could squeeze in every last piece of happiness before I got sick and died…” Mitch said. Was he really happy all this time? It is only after Morrie’s lessons that Mitch realizes that in all these years, the time where he immersed on work now seems meaningless.

One of his most important lessons to Mitch is the absence of love, and that emptiness can be filled only by loving human relationships. “As our great poet Auden said, ‘Love each other or perish.’” Morrie quoted. When there is love, a person can experience no higher sense of fulfillment. “This is part of what a family is about, not just love, but letting others know there’s someone who is watching out for them. It’s what I missed so much when my mother died—what I call your ‘spiritual security’—knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame.” Morrie said. (in the fifth Tuesday).

During their eleventh Tuesday together, they talked about culture. As Morrie sees it, popular culture is a dictator under which people and their community must suffer. Morrie teaches Mitch about how we, not only Mitch but also the rest of the world, should not believe what they say. In rejecting the values of the popular culture, Mitch should create his own set of customs, only when he does that, he begins to rediscover what he is missing in life.

It’s not just Mitch, but most of us is mistakenly of what is real happiness and what is it that makes us happy? And how to live life to the fullest? Tuesdays with Morrie is reminding us to slow down and give ourselves a few minutes to reflect on our life and finding what we had been missing.