Tuesdays With Morrie: Mitch Albom

Tuesdays with Morrie is a small book, but it carries a great many good questions and some profound observations about our way of life. I picked it up with a very cynical bent of mind as I have come to have about books categorized as "life lessons" or "self-help" if you will. I tend to find these very preachy and that bothers me.

Morrie's however is such a different book talking about the same things you hear from most "guru's" - in such a nice little package. The plot is life and the players are us. Morrie is a professor who is suffering from a terminal disease and this book is about his unique perspective on life and how he makes his time count. The author is a beloved student of his who has lost touch and gotten sucked into the grind of life when he hears about his illness and reconnects. The book is about their conversations about topics that affect us all - life, death, relations, marriage children, regrets.

Personally, quite a few items in the book were close to the heart, I'm sure everyone will find something or the other to relate to via their experiences - the book is poignant and Morrie's aphorisms are profound. Through reading the book I really felt attached to Morrie and as you reach the very end you wish that he sticks around longer - like a beloved person's loss at the very inevitable end.

Morrie talks about personal attention to people in your life, there is a beautiful thought about "detaching" yourself from an experience - he says that we try to preserve an experience - instead live through it - experience everything - dont hold back - say it and feel it all - so that when its all said and done - you can detach yourself from the experience hence making it easy to let go of something - I dont completely understand the concept - but its something to experience I guess.

The book is filled with such profound observations, the above is probably one that I felt was the most complex for me to relate to and understand. Tuesdays with Morrie is a recommended read - its like being a fly on the wall of a very interesting converation - and at the end the loss is real - but the lessons remain.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This book has been on my shelf for a couple of years, look like I'll need to bump it up. I recently saw the movie, so I'd like to read the book.

I've read his Five People You Meet in Heaven and For One More Day. Enjoyed For One More Day, didn't care for Five People You Meet in Heaven though, there was something about it I can't quite put my finger on.

I've got For One More Day on tape though when it recently premiered on TV (produced by Oprah), am looking forward to watching it whenever I have a spare moment between my books!

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- David

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