Tuesdays with Morrie ― 9 Powerful Life Lessons

Author: Mitch Albom
Publisher: Hachette India

Tuesdays with Morrie is a memoir on the 14 enlightening Tuesdays that the author spent with his terminally-ill professor, Morrie. They together called this book their “Final Thesis together”. The book is full of life-enriching lessons. It’s, in fact, a life coach in itself. For me, it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.

Here, I am sharing some of the most important life lessons I learned from this great work of art.

Powerful Life-Lessons from Tuesdays with Morrie:-

#1: Build your own sub-culture:-

We all often follow certain customs and do certain things just to appease our ailing society. We fare in useless competitions, waste our time in search of perfection, inhibit our emotions, worry over manufactured thoughts, watch useless TV shows.
All this just to get accepted in a society that puts forward conditions to accept you?

There is no point living that way because there are so many “doctrines of living” floating around that even if we follow one of them, we will be wrong according to another.

In Morrie’s words,

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.

I think these words have even more relevance in today’s world where there is an overflow of all sorts of culture.

Also Read: Slay the 21st Century with These 15 Powerful Life Lessons from Charles Bukowski

#2: Value your Time:-

Even Randy Pausch, ( Author of The Last Lecture) had advocated the importance of time where he said, “Time is all you have and you may find one day that you have less than you think.” This has been advocated by almost all the great people known and Morrie is no exception.

We waste our precious time watching senseless web-shows, following and fighting over celebrities we don’t know in real life and most probably will never get to know. All these things even after knowing that we have limited time. And then, we are the 1st to complain about the lack of time.

Morrie advocated devoting our time to creating something that gives us purpose and meaning instead of wasting it on watching someone else’s drama.

#3: Borrow freely from all religions:-

Though Morrie was born Jewish, with time he had become an agnostic. He borrowed freely from all religions.

That’s something we all need to inculcate in our lives. The fight over religion is one of the most ridiculous things mankind has produced. No religion is bad. There is goodness in every religion. It was an utter chance that we were born in one religion and not the other. So there is no point in demeaning other’s religion. Take the good and leave the rest.

#4: The realization that we are going to die and how to take it positively:-

We all know we are going to die, so life is a limited period offer for us Humans, but we hardly believe that. Morrie believed that being ready for death actually helps in getting more involved in our lives.

Now, you must be thinking, how we can be prepared to die. Don’t worry he had suggested the way too. In his words,

Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks,
‘Is today the day?
Am I ready?
Am I doing all I need to do?
Am I being the person I want to be?

Am I being the person I want to be?

I found this technique really head-on. We all often waste so much time on useless things. If we can keep reminding ourselves that we have limited time, we can definitely be more productive.

To inculcate in me, this habit of reminding myself, I have stuck these words of Morrie in my room. When I wake up in the morning, wear my spectacles, the 1st thing I see is these words from Morrie. This way I’m reminded throughout the day that there is no time to waste. Believe me, this has really helped me in increasing my efficiency at work.

#5: Keep a dedicated slot for Self-pity:-

Morrie often felt low sometimes. After all, he was suffering from a fatal disease. but Morrie being Morrie had developed his own way of overcoming the thought of dying. He gave himself a good cry but had put a daily limit on that. For the rest of the time, he focused on all the good things in life.

What I feel is that if a person who knows he is going to die soon, can have such a positive attitude.
Why not we?

#6: The Idea of Hosting Get-Togethers from Morrie’s idea of Living Funeral:-

The idea struck Morrie’s mind when one of his colleagues died and he went to attend his funeral. He saw people saying all sorts of wonderful things about his deceased friend.

This really depressed him because he thought what’s the use of saying such things after the person has died. Inspired by his thought, he decided to host his “Living Funeral”, so that he gets to know what his family and friends think about him while he is still alive.

Though we cannot organize “Living Funerals” as not everyone gets to know that they are going to die soon. But we can definitely host “Get-Togethers” every now and then and speak good things about each other.

#7: Value human relations:–

Human relations is one thing that is often taken for granted. We are ready to give up our relations on very trivial matters.

Morrie believed that the only way we are different from the rest of nature is that,

“We can die without ever really going away. We live on – in the hearts of every one we have touched and nurtured while we were here”

And that’s how humans become immortal.

Also Read: Powerful Life Lessons from Into the Wild: Life of Chris McCandless, a young man who destroyed all his worldly documents, donated his savings, emancipated from his family, and embarked on his journey Into the Alaskan wild.

#8: Forgive not only others but also yourself:-

Everyone commits mistakes, one who doesn’t is definitely research material. So learn to forgive. Human relations are important. There is no point in losing them on trivial matters.

Morrie added another dimension to the art of forgiveness by adding to the list the need to forgive ourselves. Forgive ourselves for the mistakes we make because unless we do so, the regret will keep on piling up. And a time will come when the bitterness arising from it will start interfering with our voyage.
In Morrie’s words,

Forgive yourself, Forgive others. Don’t wait, Mitch. Not everyone gets the time I’m getting. Not everyone is as lucky.

This idea of forgiving ourselves highly resonated with me because I’ve always felt that it’s the guilt of the mistakes we had committed that prevents us from enjoying our lives. Morrie reinforced my belief that unless we forgive ourselves, we cannot overcome our regrets.