Top highlights from Tuesdays with Morrie
Death ends a life, not a relationship.
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So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
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Accept who you are; and revel in it.
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You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too--even when youre in the dark. Even when youre falling.
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The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.
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If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your heard even, you experience them fully and completely.
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I like myself better when I'm with you.
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Don't let go too soon, but don't hold on too long.
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Life is a series of pulls back and forth... A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. Most of us live somewhere in the middle. A wrestling match...Which side win? Love wins. Love always wins
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Don't cling to things because everything is impermanent.
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Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own. Most people can't do it.
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there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.
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Love wins, love always wins.
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I give myself a good cry if I need it, but then I concentrate on all good things still in my life.
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This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It's knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.
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If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.
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The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. Let it come in. We think we dont deserve love, we think if we let it in well become too soft. But a wise man named Levin said it right. He said, Love is the only rational act.
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We've got a sort of brainwashing going on in our country, Morrie sighed. Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it--and have it repeated to us--over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all of this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore.Wherever I went in my life, I met people wanting to gobble up something new. Gobble up a new car. Gobble up a new piece of property. Gobble up the latest toy. And then they wanted to tell you about it. 'Guess what I got? Guess what I got?'You know how I interpreted that? These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can't substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.Money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness. I can tell you, as I'm sitting here dying, when you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you're looking for, no matter how much of them you have.
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Everyone knows they re going to die,' he said again, 'but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.
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Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
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Be compassionate," Morrie whispered. And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place."He took a breath, then added his mantra: "Love each other or die.
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As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed as ignorant as you were at twenty-two, you'd always be twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.
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Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do somehing else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.
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People are only mean when they are threatened.
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There is no such thing as 'too late' in life.
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I thought about all the people I knew who spent many of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves. How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity. Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day.
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Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent... But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to leave it...You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief... But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely.You know what pain is. You know what love is. "All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.
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I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on the good things still in my life. I don't allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each every morning, a few tears, and that's all.
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The truth is, part of me is every age. Im a three-year-old, Im a five-year-old, Im a thirty-seven-year-old, Im a fifty-year-old. Ive been through all of them, and I know what its like. I delight in being a child when its appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when its appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own.
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The truth is, when our mothers held us, rocked us, stroked our heads -none of us ever got enough of that. We all yearn in some way to return to those days when we were completely taken care of - unconditional love, unconditional attention. Most of us didn't get enough.
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Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward.
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Giving to other people makes me feel alive. Not my car or my house. Not what I look like in the mirror. When I give my time, when I can make someone smile after they were feeling sad...
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We need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done. You can't get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened.
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The problem, Mitch, is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are. Whites and blacks, Catholics and Protestants, men and women. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be very eager to join in one big human family in this world, and to care about that family the way we care about our own.But believe me, when you are dying, you see it is true. We all have the same beginning - birth - and we all have the same end - death. So how different can we be?Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you.
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There is a big confusion in this country over what we want verses what we need...you need food. You want a chocolate sundae.
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Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.
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Without love we all like birds with broken wings.
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Take any emotionlove for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what Im going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotionsif you dont allow yourself to go all the way through themyou can never get to being detached, youre too busy being afraid. Youre afraid of the pain, youre afraid of the grief. Youre afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.
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Its not contagious, you know. Death is as natural as life. Its part of the deal we made.
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Dying is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else.
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Learn how to live and you'll know how to die; learn how to die, and you'll know how to live.
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The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.
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Its not just other people we need to forgive. We also need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didnt do. All the things we should have done.
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All I was afraid of is saying good-bye.
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We all have the same beginning - birth - and we all have the same end - death. So how different can we be?
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The little things, I can obey. The big thingshow we think, what we valuethose you must choose yourself. You can't let anyoneor any societydetermine those for you.
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Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do. Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it. Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others. Don't assume that it's too late to get involved.
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Be compassionate ... and take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be a better place.
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There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness. These things" -he sighed- "these things I so regret in my life. Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do? Morrie Schwartz
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There's a big confusion in this country over what we want versus what we need," Morrie said. "You need food, you want a chocolate sundae. You have to be honest with yourself. You don't need the latest sports car, you don't need the biggest house. The truth is, you don't get satisfaction from those things. You know what really gives you satisfaction?...Offering others what you have to give...I don't mean money, Mitch. I mean your time. Your concern. Your storytelling. It's not so hard.
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Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldnt. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle. Sounds like a wrestling match, I say. A wrestling match. He laughs. Yes, you could describe life that way. So which side wins, I ask? Which side wins? He smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth. Love wins. Love always wins.
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We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us. The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted.
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Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?
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The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isnt the family. If you dont have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you dont have much at all. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, Love each other or perish.
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Detachment doesnt mean you dont let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. Thats how you are able to leave it.
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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. Create your own.
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Its very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, youd always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. Its growth. Its more than the negative that youre going to die, its also the positive that you understand youre going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.
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Love is the only rational act.
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Embrace aging.
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What she mostly wanted, he learned, was the same thing many people want--someone to notice she was there.
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