In this post, I’ll be reviewing Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom.
A Brief Synopsis
This book is about the valuable lessons that Morrie, who’s dying from ALS, imparts to Mitch, his former student.
Mitch is well into his fast-paced career as a well-known sports journalist. He has nice cars, a house, job importance, and slight fame. On the surface, life is great for him.
Morrie, who Mitch hasn’t seen since his college graduation, leads a much simpler life as a college professor who enjoys dancing, reading, and spending time with his family. Life is great for him, too, yet in drastically different ways than Mitch.
Suddenly, though, Morrie is diagnosed with ALS and told he has less than a year to live. As we see throughout the book, far from panicking and living the rest of his life in agony or anger, Morrie becomes more grounded than ever, and shares much about what that looks like with Mitch.
The two end up reconnecting and meeting weekly after over 20 years of not speaking. On those Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch realizes that his life isn’t so great after all. He’s way too consumed in his work, doesn’t have any real meaning, and avoids emotions at all costs.
“I traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck, and I never even realized I was doing it”
— Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom, 1997, p. 33)
The story is all about Mitch and Morrie’s deep and intimate conversations, and what each of us can gain from living life more like Morrie did.
One of the Most Impactful Books I’ve Read
That’s a pretty bold statement, considering just how many books I’ve read. But it’s true, Tuesdays with Morrie impacted me in such a way that I will never forget.
Morrie shares so many nuggets of wisdom and gems about life that leave the reader feeling lucky to have come across the text—I certainly did
“Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too—even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling”
— Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom, 1997, p. 61)
It’s the simplicity of Morrie’s messages which makes them even more resonant.
He’s also not preaching from a position of superiority and telling Mitch he ought to listen to him. When he speaks about the need to love others and feel loved, he models this with his own family.
When Morrie tells Mitch about the need to slow down in life, the message is much more compelling because it’s exactly how Morrie lives his life.
Change the Culture
The thing that stuck with me most in the book is Morrie’s thoughts about “the culture” and the importance of changing it.
The culture is also known as the rat race, the conventional way of living, and how we’re socialized to think about success.
The culture, in addition, represents the same society that teaches us to hide our emotions and not to lead with love.
“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.”
— Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom, 1997, pP. 35-36)
Morrie senses all of this is occurring in Mitch, and though he strays away from explicitly telling him what to do, particularly in the early days of their meetings, he advises Mitch that people would be much happier if they lived differently.
“We’re so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks—we’re involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?”
— Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom, 1997, pP 64-65)
Morrie’s words made so much sense to me.
It is only recently that I’ve begun asking myself these deeper questions. Before beginning what I like to call my journey of intentionally creating myself, I just went—on to the next thing, the bigger thing, the more ambitious goal, whatever took me to the next level.
Yet I never even stopped to consider why I was doing it all…
Turns out, I wasn’t doing it because I truly wanted to. It was simply because a full-time stable job, comfortable salary, buying a house, vacations once or twice a year—all of it was, and is, what I see around me.
Though, as Morrie would have it, I’ve now recognized it and am changing the culture, because it truly does not work for me.
“Wash yourself with emotion”
I also appreciated Morrie’s thoughts about emotions and the value of deeply feeling them, whether they’re good or bad.
“But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely.”
— Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom, 1997, p. 104)
He tells Mitch that, way too often, people run from their emotions—because they’re afraid of feeling them and are taught by the culture that emotions come second to logic.
Somewhat surprisingly, though, Morrie states that the more one can experience feeling, the more effectively they will be able to detach and step away from it. This can be particularly helpful with grief or other challenging emotions.
“Morrie’s approach was exactly the opposite. Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with emotion. It won’t hurt you. It will only help. If you let fear inside, if you pull on it like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, ‘all right, it’s just fear, I dont have to let it control me. I see it for what it is’”
— Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom, 1997, p. 105)
It isn’t that Morrie didn’t feel the negative emotions associated with knowing you’re dying, but he knew how to experience them for what they are and healthily detach from them.
I thought there was so much in this that I could implement in my life. Instead of trying to bury my emotions, I need to face them head-on—if I cry, I cry; if I’m sad, so be it—so that I can feel all the other beautiful emotions there are to feel in this world.
Living Life to the Fullest
Reading Tuesdays with Morrie reminded me how short life is. We all say this and I think most of us understand it, but when you’re reminded of it by hearing Morrie’s story, there’s no way you won’t be encouraged to live life to the fullest.
“Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, ‘Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?’”
— Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom, 1997, p. 81)
I found myself reflecting on what I am doing, and what I am not, with my life.
Am I letting love come into my life?
Do I treat the people I love with sincere kindness and affection?
What am I prioritizing? And how are those things serving me?
“‘Everybody knows they’re going to die’”…’but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently”
— Tuesdays With Morrie (Albom, 1997, p. 81)
I think Morrie would have been proud that I was asking myself these questions.
The way he sees it, too many people lose out on so much life because they don’t take the time to pause, think, and be intentional in their actions.
“Most of us walk around as if we’re sleepwalking. We really don’t experience the world fully, because we’re half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do”
— Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom, 1997, p. 83)
That message resonated with me a lot, especially after reading The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau and what he had to say about sleepwalking. I refuse to be a monkey who’s choosing not to get the banana (i.e., not living my life in the best way possible)!
What does living life to the fullest mean to you?
A Note on Albom’s Writing
One of the reasons I enjoyed this book and took so much away from it was because of Albom’s writing.
It was simple, yet incredibly engaging and thoughtful.
The way he weaves back and forth from his childhood to conversations he had with Mitch in college to the present day adds depth to the book and made me want to keep reading into the early hours of the morning!
He also has an amazing skill at putting the reader into the room with him and Mitch. I felt as if I was a fly on the wall, privileged to be granted access to such thought-provoking conversations.
There were several instances in which I experienced goosebumps on my body as a result of the depth and meaningfulness of their conversations, which was facilitated by Mitch’s writing.
Moreover, the way Albom writes of Morrie really makes the latter’s wisdom and personality shine through the book. He regards his professor with such love and respect that I came to admire Morrie as if he were my own father or grandfather.
“We held hands regularly now. This was another change for me. Things that before would have made me embarrassed or squeamish were now routinely handled. The catheter bag, connected to the tube inside him and filled with greenish waste fluid, lay by my foot near the leg of his chair. A few months earlier, it might have disgusted me; it was inconsequential now”
— Tuesdays with Morrie (Albom, 1997, p. 155)
Lastly, Albom writes so personally about the ways in which he’s changed through his meetings with Morrie. In some ways, the book is part-memoir, given how open he is with the reader about who he is after those months spent with Morrie compared to the man he was prior.
For all of these reasons, it has been a pleasure reading and reviewing Tuesdays with Morrie, and I would highly recommend this book to anyone engaging in deep life reflections.
Till’ Next Time Travel Friends!
