By Yerin Kim |Staff Writer|
Tuesdays with Morrie is a book that served as direction when I lost my way in life. It helped me reconsider the significance of life and death.
Mitch Albom’s book is so inspirational, it has been published in 41 languages, and adapted into an award-winning movie directed by Mick Jackson in 1999.
The book is a collection of nonfiction stories, including conversations on the meaning of life between Mitch, a sports columnist, and Morrie Schartz, a retired sociology professor.
Morrie was dying from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—a fatal neuromuscular disease that ultimately results in paralysis, then death.
While suffering from progressive muscle debilitation during the rest of his lifetime, Morrie conveyed several genuine values he gained throughout his life to his beloved pupil, Mitch, through fourteen discussions held every Tuesday.
Mitch documented Morrie’s discussions and teachings as a narrator and published them as a novel.
In his lessons, Morrie encouraged Mitch to stop following the popular culture of society, which is charged with greed, selfishness, conformity, and superficiality.
“The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves… You have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it. Create yours,” stated Morrie.
The individualistic culture Morrie recommended is based on love, acceptance, human goodness, and a set of ethical values like benevolence, righteousness, virtue, and courtesy.
Morrie taught how to accept, forgive, believe and love oneself, as well as others.
“Forgive yourself, and forgive others,” said Morrie. “Accept who you are; and revel in it.”
He shared an impressively mature attitude towards death, accepting death as something inevitable.
“The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live,” stated Morrie.
The author’s writing style is descriptive, which immersed me in the book.
Diverse narratives constitute the book, ranging from everyday conversations to authorial narratives, descriptions of characters depicting voice, facial expressions, gestures, moves, and his feelings and thoughts, crossing over different tensions between the past and the present.
Since I am personally attached to this book, I couldn’t find any faults in the writing, in the story, or in the lessons. This book reminded me of so many things that I took for granted: life and death, nature, family, friends, my community surrounding me, and, most importantly, myself.
I find it is easy to lose our individuality in the social conformity and materialistic superficiality of modern consumerism.
An extremely competitive society keeps us busy, which distracts us from looking into the ultimate purpose of our life: being happy with loved ones.
Nevertheless, standing before death destroys all false values and illusions that we had been obsessed with in life.
This book will give you important lessons, helping you rethink the vital things in life.
“You have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now,” stated Morrie.
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