Finished reading: Tuesdays with Morrie : an old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson by Mitch Albom 📚
I enjoyed Tuesdays with Morrie. It felt like a healthy dose of memento mori. I hope to be as graceful as the subject, Morrie, when I encounter challenging circumstances in my life.
I didn’t have a lot of notes, or even quotes, from this book, but one thing that stood out to me was how Morrie responded when asked by the author what he would do if he had one full, healthy day. By this point, the ALS had a near-complete grip over his body, and he was confined to his bedroom. His answer included:
- Inviting friends over, one by one, to share their joys and worries and how much they mean to each other
- Sharing good meals with friends
- Walking in nature
- Going out dancing
His answer struck me, because the list is simple and these are all things I would want to do too. In fact, the list is so simple that I could easily make time for all of these things this week, or even today. And I have the health to do them. But I often don’t do them. It made me pause to consider why I am not devoting more time to these things in life that are so important.
And I think that is the point of this book. To wrestle with how we are living. Unfortunately, that is something that many of us don’t start until it is far too late.
Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.
- Morrie Schwartz