80 pages • 2 hours read
Mitch AlbomTuesday’s with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1997A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Death as a Lesson
Professor Morrie Schwartz loves life and people and conversation and walks in the woods and dancing till late. He approaches everything with energy and commitment. When death approaches, Morrie becomes a dedicated student of it and shares his discoveries with enthusiasm.
For Morrie, the chief lesson of death is that life shouldn’t be wasted. Death sets a limit on a person’s lifespan; as such, it’s a timer that reminds us to participate as fully as we can in the years we have available. Most people, though, see death simply as something horrible to avoid. The result is that people waste their lives over trivialities, getting and spending instead of giving and loving.
Morrie also realizes that death doesn’t make a person disappear; instead, a person’s love for others lives on in their hearts. The difference we can make comes from loving and contributing to the people around us, and those benefits continue long after we’re physically gone. Our caring for others bestows on us a deep satisfaction, and this makes our lives, however long or short, worthwhile.
Morrie takes this wisdom one step further by continuing, during his final months, to give of his knowledge to as many people as he can. Though he accepts the inevitability of his own demise, Morrie remains cheerfully defiant: “It’ll get my body. It will not get my spirit” (181). Indeed, Morrie participates vigorously in teaching and conversation until four days before his death.
People who visit Morrie, expecting to comfort him about his illness, instead come away transformed by Morrie’s insightful observations and concern for their lives. Awareness of his own death is an engine that powers his last, and most important, contributions to the world.
To spread what he’s learned as far and wide as possible, Morrie arranges his insights into a set of 50 aphorisms that appear in The Boston Globe. The article comes to the attention of Ted Koppel at ABC’s Nightline, and Ted interviews Morrie. This interview catches the attention of Albom, who reconnects with his old professor for a series of discussions that become the book, Tuesdays with Morrie. The book sells 15 million copies, is adapted into an Emmy-winning TV movie, and becomes a staple of classroom discussions for decades. Clearly, Morrie’s efforts pay off. Under his guidance, death becomes an instrument of life available forever to anyone who reads the book. Morrie’s loving efforts become an immortal memorial. In accepting death, Morrie has defied it.
If the Culture Doesn’t Work, Don’t Buy It
Since childhood, Morrie has been aware that the culture around him lures people into a mindless yearning for possessions and status. The system creates an ongoing competition that makes people feel insecure and selfish. A few individuals accumulate vast amounts while others languish in poverty. Caught in the middle, workers remain perpetually anxious about their own job security, and this makes them selfish; given the chance, many of them exploit others to benefit themselves.
The result is an atmosphere of continuous greed, of ongoing searches for short-term pleasures, and of feelings of obsession and isolation. Even when they gather with others, individuals try, not so much to enjoy the company, but to get things from them. Few of them reach out and give.
Lost in this swirl of anxious pleasure-seeking are timeless values that offer true satisfaction. The beauties of nature surround us, but we are shut up to them. Music and dance abound, but we either find ourselves too busy to enjoy them or we participate in them feverishly and mindlessly. Opportunities for loving others are everywhere, but we hurry past them, obsessed with our private goals. Conversations become strained when no one listens, and everyone merely waits for their turn to talk.
Morrie urges us to call this culture into question. He likes to say that “if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it” (59). Though we feel we must succumb to the siren song of mindless consumption, in fact we are at all times free to step away, rethink our options, and reconsider what really matters to us. We can make our own culture. This doesn’t require anarchic rebellion—walking around naked, refusing to stop for red lights—because what really matters isn’t listed in the laws and social rules. Those are easy to navigate; the hard part is learning to sail upon the uncharted seas of our own deepest desires while relying on an inner compass rusty with disuse. In time, though, we can master the skills of our new, hand-built culture. Morrie recommends strongly that, however we choose to live our lives, it should include caring about and loving others. This is where we’ll find true meaning and satisfaction.
Talking to Morrie, Albom realizes that his own life has been caught up in the anxious grind and ongoing greediness of the outside culture. He learns from Morrie how to be more open with others, how to care about them, and, finally, how to love them. Albom develops his own private culture that involves charity work and serving his community.
Without other people in our daily lives, and lacking a dedication to them, our path will remain empty. It’s vital to share our hearts and our love with others; with these as touchstones, we can found our own culture and become free of the anxiety and greed of the alienating older culture.
Giving is Living
Morrie has an unusual saying: “Love each other or die” (181). This isn’t a threat; it’s a wake-up call. The most important part of life, according to Morrie, is other people. The satisfactions we experience with people don’t come from what we get from them but from what we give to them. Morrie has a plan for how to commit to giving.
First, we must love other people. We mustn’t wait for others to earn that love; we must give it freely. We don’t love people for what they’ve achieved; that’s mere admiration. Instead, we love them for who they are. Everyone, deep inside, is fragile, yearning, insightful, and creative; when we love them as they are, we bring out those good qualities. As with Morrie, who seems to love everyone he meets, we can practice this attitude of loving others until it becomes a strong habit.
Second, we must cherish and nurture our families. Friends are wonderful, but a family will watch out for you, and, if you become ill, they’ll watch over you. Family and children are so important to Morrie, who has two loving sons and a marriage of 44 years, that he believes people without family are missing a critical element of the well-lived life. He adds: “There is no experience like having children” (110). It’s true, there are few relationships as challenging as marriage, but Morrie believes a couple will succeed if they are respectful, open, willing to compromise, share common values, and dedicate themselves to each other.
Third, we must listen to other people. Most conversations involve people who want to talk more than to listen to what others are thinking and feeling. The result is that we grow impatient while waiting our turn to speak. If, instead, we really listen to others, we find, as does Morrie, that they have much to say about deep feelings, sadness, and joys. The more we hear these truths from others, the more our own hearts open, and the more we can contribute sincerely from our own spirit to the people in our lives.
Fourth, we must forgive. People make mistakes and screw up their relationships. If, however, we can forgive them, for example, for rejecting us, we often find that they become open to us again. Morrie knows that Albom has failed to keep his promise to stay in touch, at least until he learns of Morrie’s illness. Morrie never mentions it but only expresses his happiness to see Albom. From this, Albom learns that acceptance goes a long way toward mending broken relationships, and he finds it in his heart to accept his brother’s need to avoid him; ironically, this makes reconciliation possible.
Morrie has another saying: “‘giving is living’ […] It was his philosophy, his raison d’être, maybe even his secret” (210). Morrie’s ultimate life lesson for his students is to love and give; in that way, they’ll find the value and meaning of life.
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By Mitch Albom
