Tuesdays with Morrie

by Mitch Albom

Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left? he had asked himself.

had become too wrapped up in the siren song of my own life. I was busy.

“Dying,” Morrie suddenly said, “is only one thing to be sad over, Mitch. Living unhappily is something else. So many of the people who come to visit me are unhappy.”

So which side wins, I ask? “Which side wins?” He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth. “Love wins. Love always wins.”

They didn’t know anyone involved in the case. Yet they gave up days and weeks of their lives, addicted to someone else’s drama.

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another.

“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”

In light of this, my visits with Morrie felt like a cleansing rinse of human kindness. We talked about life and we talked about love. We talked about one of Morrie’s favorite subjects, compassion, and why our society had such a shortage of it.

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.”

“the culture doesn’t encourage you to think about such things until you’re about to die. 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?”

“When I have people and friends here, I’m very up. The loving relationships maintain me.

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

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?’ ”

But I do know we’re deficient in some way. We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don’t satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted.”

He saw right to the core of the problem, which was human beings wanting to feel that they mattered.

truth is, you don’t get satisfaction from those things. You know what really gives you satisfaction?” What? “Offering others what you have to give.” You sound like a Boy Scout. “I don’t mean money, Mitch. I mean your time. Your concern. Your storytelling. It’s not so hard.

Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.”

“Part of the problem, Mitch, is that everyone is in such a hurry,” Morrie said. “People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running.” Once you start running, I said, it’s hard to slow yourself down.

“The truth is, I don’t have to be in that much of a hurry with my car. I would rather put my energies into people.”

We are great at small talk: “What do you do?” “Where do you live?” But really listening to someone—without trying to sell them something, pick them up, recruit them, or get some kind of status in return—how often do we get this anymore?

was amazed, once again, at his ability to draw emotion from people who otherwise kept it locked away.

They don’t know what they want in a partner. They don’t know who they are themselves—so how can they know who they’re marrying?”

“Love each other or perish.”

nervous laughter that comes when the devil is within earshot.

“People are only mean when they’re threatened,”

But the big things—how we think, what we value—those you must choose yourself. You can’t let anyone—or any society—determine those for you.

“Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.”

living means I can be responsive to the other person. It means I can show my emotions and my feelings. Talk to them. Feel with them…”

But as his body rotted, his character shone even more brightly.

“As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on—in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.”

“That’s the thing, you see. Once you get your fingers on the important questions, you can’t turn away from them.”

“There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like.

He never cared for sleeping, not when there were people he could talk with.

look back sometimes at the person I was before I rediscovered my old professor. I want to talk to that person. I want to tell him what to look out for, what mistakes to avoid. I want to tell him to be more open, to ignore the lure of advertised values, to pay attention when your loved ones are speaking, as if it were the last time you might hear them.

Have you ever really had a teacher? One who saw you as a raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine? If you are lucky enough to find your way to such teachers, you will always find your way back. Sometimes it is only in your head. Sometimes it is right alongside their beds.