Tuesdays with Morrie

“Accept who you are; and revel in it.”

I can sum up Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie in a nutshell – if we accept the inevitability of our death then we can focus on what’s actually important. Tuesdays with Morrie makes you stop – very gently and firmly, the way only a dying man’s wisdom can.

Mitch Albom reconnects with his sociology professor Morrie Schwartz, who is battling ALS. What follows is a series of Tuesday conversations — part lesson, part confession which are profound and compels you to introspect.

Morrie’s lessons arrive deceptively simply. On love — “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”

On self-pity — he redirects his gaze to the blessing of having time to say goodbye, something most of us are never afforded.

On regrets — he has none, but notes that most people are too consumed by careers, mortgages, and ego to even arrive at that question.

On death — facing it boldly strips everything to its essentials and its power.

On family — quoting W.H. Auden, “Love each other or perish.” Nothing, not money, not fame, not status, replicates that devotion.

On aging — he doesn’t envy the young. He simply remembers being every age he has ever been, and carries it all with him.

What Morrie leaves behind, distilled across these Tuesdays, is consistent: society has brainwashed us into measuring self-worth through possessions and positions, when the only real currency has always been love and tenderness.

“Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do somehing 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.”

Tuesdays with Morries, Mitch Albom

The book’s most lingering image is a dying plant on Morrie’s window — its petals shrivelled, falling into soil, eventually nourishing other life. Morrie says humans are different from plants only in this way: if we gave love, we are never truly gone. We live on in the memories of those we touched.

We often mistake motion for meaning — running one more lap, chasing happiness like a fleeting butterfly, only to arrive nowhere. With each Tuesday, Morrie quietly asks us to sit down, look inward, and ask what we are actually running towards – perhaps a lap more will satiate our desire for happiness. Happiness is like a fleeting butterfly, and chasing it serves no purpose. With each lesson with Morrie, we are driven to reminisce about the time we could have made a difference but failed to do so because we keep society before ourselves.

Head over to comment section and let us know if you have read the book as it is book that doesn’t just deserve to be read — it deserves to be revisited.

You can also reach me on Facebook or Instagram to share your views, and while you are at it, please subscribe to my blog!

Cheers to Reading!

Please don’t use the photos without permission