Tuesdays With Morrie - A Book You Don't Want To Overlook
Written: Dec 24 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Extremely easy to read, lots of good thoughts minus all of the preachiness.
Cons: None.
The Bottom Line: This is a keeper. Whenever I need to refresh myself with the "meaning of life", I'll make sure to re-read this.
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| kristinafh's Full Review: Mitch Albom - Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, a ... |
Preamble
Over the past two months, I have been doing a lot of soul-searching for various reasons. For my entire life, I've struggled with the whole God/Religion thing and most recently, personal circumstances made me step back and take note of the way I had been living my life. In addition to talking with a number of people, I've been spending a fair amount of time at the book stores, reaching out and looking at books I may have never even given the time of day to before.
I remember hearing about this book, Tuesdays With Morrie a few years ago. To be honest, most of the books labeled "inspirational" do nothing for me. They're usually very preachy and sugary - basically, one step away from a Harlequin Romance Novel (not that there's anything wrong with that - just not my thing).
I'm not sure what made me pick Tuesdays With Morrie up but since then, it has weighed heavily on my mind.
The Guts
This is a true story written by sportswriter and author Mitch Albom.
As a professor of Sociology and more importantly, life, Morrie Schwartz had a tremendous impact on many people including student Mitch Albom. In the late 70's Mitch had taken every single one of Professor Schwartz's classes. He was so taken by the Professor that at graduation, he presented him with a tan briefcase with his initials on the front of it. Mitch promised to keep in touch however, every day life (i.e. climbing his career ladder, aspiring to be the best in everything) took control.
One day, as Mitch was flipping through television channels, he caught a teaser clip from ABC News Nightline, Who Is Morrie Schwartz? He froze in his tracks and glued himself to the television set. That's how he found out that his dear old Morrie had ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis).
Overwhelmed with guilt and even grief, Mitch set out to reconnect with his Professor. He was welcomed with open arms.
Every Tuesday, Mitch would go over to Morrie's house and listen to Morrie's thoughts on the world, feeling sorry for yourself, regrets, death, family, emotions, fear of aging, money, love, marriage, our culture, forgiveness, and the perfect day.
Throughout these discussions with Morrie, Mitch would flashback to different episodes in his life - college, his family, his career. It was as if he was matching up some of Morrie's thoughts with some of the unfinished business he had floating around in his own mind.
Why This Rocked My World
This book is easy to read and avoids the usual preachiness that I find in "inspirational" type books. Those two reasons alone would have been enough for me to give this book a positive review.
But beyond the general aesthetic reasons, this book crawled into every orifice of my consciousness. I found myself thinking about things during normal, every day chores. I would wake up the next morning, to remember that I had been dreaming about a particular thought that Morrie had discussed with Mitch. A book that can have this type of lasting effect on me is something special in my opinion.
Morrie talked with Mitch about a lot of things that I know are troubling to me. Dying is something that I've always been afraid of. It's an unknown entity in which I am entirely powerless over. This combined, with my confusion of the entire God/Religion thing is enough to keep me in a tizzy. Mitch captured Morrie's thoughts perfectly and most importantly, succinctly.
Everybody knows we're going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.
Although Morrie was born a Jew, seldom did religion or the God thing come into conversation. Instead, he said things that just seemed to ring true for me.
Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.
This particular quote sounded good but it wasn't until I heard Morrie's logic that the little ding ding ding went off in my head. Accepting that today is my last day of life, might make me less ambitious, make me less caring about things that are pretty superficial like money, labels, and materialistic items.
And before I went on to the next chapter, I closed my eyes and I thought about this stuff. I thought about all of the stuff I would cut out of my life if I only had that one precious day left.
Each chapter (each visit) had a similar look and feel to them with Morrie spouting words of wisdom that seemed way too practical and common sense like. Both Mitch and I would take the time to reflect on his words, not because it was required but the thoughts invaded our consciousness, seeming to uncover many of those things that we wanted to bury for one purpose or another.
If you know anything about ALS, then you know that it is terminal and that Morrie dies. I wasn't expecting to be so sucked in to Morrie. I wasn't expecting the bucket of tears that appeared during Mitch's last visit with Morrie. I tried to figure out what I was crying about and how I could shut off that spout before someone walked into the room.
I think I was crying about how often, we don't understand things until it's too late and that if everyone had the same dose of wisdom that Morrie had, only way before they were knockin' at death's door, I wonder what the world would be like. Would we be this close to waging war with Iraq? Would we slow down and enjoy the moment?
I don't know. It just blows my mind to think of the possibilities that could occur if a dose of Morrie's wisdom was embraced by every one in the world.
Highly recommended for those who are on a soul-searching journey about the meaning of life.
Resources on ALS
ALS Association
http://www.alsa.org/
ALS Survival Guide
http://www.lougehrigsdisease.net/
Project ALS
http://www.projectals.org/
P.S.
If you know of any other books that are as moving as this one, please let me know in the comments. It would be a wonderful Christmas gift!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kristinafh
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Member: Kristina Frazier-Henry
Location: Indiana
Reviews written: 1344
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About Me:
Cannot breathe. Missing Barbara.
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