TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE

 

Dr. Morrie is suffering from ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) and this book contains last words of wisdom that professor Morrie shares with his college student (author of the book, Mitch). Mitch used to visit Morrie every Tuesday before Morrie died of his severe illness. There is lot to learn from their meetings, let's look at the key points that Morrie shared -:

First Tuesday : love 

•Most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love and let it come in. 

• We don't let love come in because either we think we don't deserve love or we think it will make us too soft. But that's not true, never be afraid to love others and let others love you. 

•As long as we love each other, we can die without really going away. All the love that you create will still be there. Death ends life, not a relationship. 

•Love is - when you are concerned about someone else's situation as you are about your own.

Second Tuesday : self pity

• No matter how worse the situation is, stop mourning and concentrate on all the good things you have. Don't feel pity of yourself. If someday you are not feeling good just spend few tearful minutes and get rid of self pity. 

Third Tuesday : trust 

•Sometimes you cannot believe what you see then you have to believe what you feel. Suppose if you feel that someone trust you then you should trust them even when you are in dark.

Fourth Tuesday : death 

•Everyone knows that they are going to die one day, but no one believes it. If we start believing this we will be more involved in our lives instead of running the usual rat race. 

•By believing that we are going to die one day, we learn how to live. We stop doing the things we have to do and start doing things we want to do and also start valuing not just material things but spritual things also like the relationship we have or nature, etc (which we otherwise take for granted) 

Fifth Tuesday : family

•Family is our foundation and a secure ground upon which we may fall back. It's the love, care and concern from family that completes us. This love is superemly important and without this we are like birds with broken wings. 

•Family provides us spiritual security. Knowing that your family will be there watching out for you, nothing else can give you that, neither money nor fame. 

•As an advice for couple whether or not to have children, Morrie says he can't tell them what to do. But he can tell that there is no experience like having children and if you want to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children. 

Sixth Tuesday : learn to detach

•Learn to detach - Don't cling to things because they are impermanent. 

• To detach yourself from anything, you need to let it penetrate you fully. For eg you cannot detach yourself from emotions like grief, pain, loneliness, if you are busy being afraid of these emotions. Instead experience them fully, now since you have recognised them, ask yourself to detach from it. 

• Think it like - it's just a fear, I cannot let it control me. 

Seventh Tuesday : fear of aging 

•Young people have their own struggles and difficulties. They have little understanding of life and are manipulated by different famous people. 

•We should embrace aging because as we grow, we learn more and understand life better. 

•People who want to go back in time, had unsatisfied and unfulfilled lives. Because if you have found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back, you want to go forward, see more and do more. 

•You surely would be envy of young people as they can swim, dance etc. But you have to feel it and let it go i.e. detach yourself from being envy of them.

•If you are battling against getting older, you are always going to be unhappy because it won't happen anyhow. 

Eighth Tuesday : money

•We put values in wrong things (material things). It lead to disillusioned lives. People haven't found meanings in their lives and they are too busy to find time to look for it. 

•If you are trying to show off to the people above you, they will look down at you anyway and if you are showing off to people below you they will envy you. Show off will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you float equally between everyone. 

•Do things that come from heart. This way you won't be dissatisfied or envious. 

• By offering others what you have will give to satisfaction like nothing else in the world and you will then lead a meaningful life. For this you need not have big talents, giving something as simple as companionship also works. 

Ninth Tuesday : pay attention

•learn to pay attention - we should be fully present in the very moment and treat the person we are with right now as the most important person and listen to him/her by heart. 

Tenth Tuesday : marriage 

•Problems in marriage arise because we don't know what we want in a partner. We don't even know ourselves properly, then how can we know who we are marrying ?

•In marriage, you get tested. You find out who you are and who the other person is. Marriage is very important thing to do. You are missing a lot if you don't try it.

Few rules to make your marriage works are -:

1)You should be able to talk openly to each other about whatever goes on between you 

2)You should have some common set of values and should know how to compromise. 

3)The most important is your belief in the importance of marriage.

Eleventh Tuesday : culture 

•Be strong enough to not to blindly follow your culture. Don't be ashamed, do what makes you happy. Make your own subculture. 

•Don't disregard every rule of your community like breaking red lights etc. The idea is that little things can be obeyed but big things like how we think and what we value -these you must choose yourself. For eg our culture like, thin women and rich men, if you don't believe in this then simply don't buy this idea and make your own ideas. 

•Every society has its problems. The way through this is not to run away but work to create your own culture. 

Twelfth Tuesday : forgive 

•Forgive yourself and forgive others. Don't wait. 

•We need to forgive ourselves for the things we didn't do, all things that we should have done. Don't get stuck on regrets of what should have happened. You need to make peace with yourself and everyone around you. 

Other important lessons 

• Don't let go too soon, but don't hang on too long. 

•If we are compassionate and take responsibility of each other then the world would be a much better place.

•We need to accept what we are able to do and what not. Accept the past as past without denying it.

•Most of the people live meaningless lives. They are half asleep and busy doing things they have to do according to so called our culture. Devote sometime out of your busy schedule and rethink - if this is all you wanted? Or is there something else that is missing?

#Please comment about how useful these lessons were for you and also share it with your friends and family.