Tuesdays With Morrie.

"What happened to me?" These words were what the author and possibly all readers of Tuesdays With Morrie would ask themselves after attending "the last class of his old professor's life".

My God... I have never really read a book which made me realise, "What have I been doing all this time?" I think most would agree with me.

You want to know what this book is all about? Just do one thing: Stop whatever you're doing at the moment, take a step back and look at your life. Is what you're doing presently really going to matter when you die? Does it really give you happiness - true happiness that can last? Does it give you satisfaction? The type of satisfaction that will stay on even after you've died? I don't think so...

My dear readers, I think it is time we all stopped what we're doing and do only what you think is important if I told you this: You're going to die tomorrow. What if you had just one more day to live - one full day - for you to do whatever you want to do here on earth? I don't think we'd worry about collecting that paycheck. I don't think we'd worry about the stock market. I don't think we'd worry about finishing our assignments - not to mention studying for that test tomorrow morning. I don't think we'd worry about bills, bank balances, property investments, or other tangible, unimportant stuff if we've only got another 24 hours to live.

You want to know what really matters in life? What are the most important above all other 'important' things we do? What will truly give us the peace to leave this world happy and satisfied? Then pick up this book and read it. All you need to know to live a life full of happiness and satisfaction is in a short, simple book called Tuesdays With Morrie. The final class of your life will begin...

I've picked out excerpts and quotes from the book that I thought to be important if we really want to live the life we always wanted. It is the same for everybody - the same life we ought to live as human beings. The one life that is the most important of all...

Morrie talks about the tension of opposites. "Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. A tension of opposites, and most of us live somewhere in the middle."

"So which side wins?", I ask.

"Love wins. Love always wins."


Morrie talks about the culture we live in. "The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it."


"So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're doing things they think are important.This is because they're chasing the wrong things. They 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."


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


"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."


"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?"


"Everyone knows they're going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently."


How can you ever be prepared to die? "Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that askes, 'Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?' "


"Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live."


"Most of us all 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."


"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."


"If you don't have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don't have much at all. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, 'Love each other or perish.' "


"We put our values in the wrong things. And it leads to very disillusioned lives."


"You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship."


"Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. I can tell you, as I'm sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have."


"There's a big confusion in this country over what we want versus what we need."


"The 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."


"This is how you start to get respect, by offering something that you have."


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


"If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyway. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone."


"Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overwhelmed with what comes back."


Morrie talks about marriage. "If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike. And the biggest one of those values, is your belief in the importance of your marriage."


"In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right? But here's the secret: In between, we need others as well."


"Be compassionate, and take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place."


"Forgive youself before you die. Then forgive others."


"Death ends a life, not a relationship."


"In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you're too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else's situation as you are about your own."


"This is how we say goodbye: I love you."