Tuesday's With Morrie

3 Pages 835 Words

There are lessons to learn from life, and all too many people are willing to offer advice, and lessons for life. These “lessons” are a rather jejune list of items designed to avoid grief, and to find a path to the good life. Who is there to offer sage advice and lessons from lives that assist us in working through grief, and the loss of a loved one? Death is a major problem that everyone faces in life. Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom, teaches many lessons from life, learned from the problems we find in our lives.
Morrie Schwartz, retired professor of sociology at Brandeis University, is one to give us just such a prospectus of lessons. His curriculum is in the style of dialogue, not so different than the Socratic dialogues of former time. Schwartz was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and began the process of dying by learning more about his life, and his perspective on the vagaries of life. Morrie utilized the dialogue method as a result of the happenstance of being visited by a former student of his.
After watching an episode of Nightline, hosted by Ted Koppel, Mitch Albom, learned of Morrie Schwartz’ plight. Mitch was a sociology major and Brandeis student in the late 1970’s, who had become a nationally known sportswriter. Once he realized the enormity of his old teacher’s illness, Mitch was willing to slow down his high-tension writing career to get back in touch with the man he was so attached to in college. This is how Albom came to renew his friendship with his old professor, and began seeing Morrie on Tuesdays. They reflected on the process of dying, and living with dying.
“…The truth is, Mitch, he said, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live…
But everyone knows someone who has died. Why is it so hard to think about dying?
Because, Morrie continued, most of us walk around as if we’re sleepwalking…when you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently…�...