The Aphorisms Of Change In Tuesdays With Morrie

Some of the most important, famous and infamous things happened on a Tuesday. In late October of 1929, the New York Stock Exchange collapsed, a leading factor that led to the Great Depression. This is famously called Black Tuesday. On June 6, 1944, Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, France to begin the end of World War II. This famously called D-Day, or Deployment Day. This was also on a Tuesday. On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after take off, killing all seven NASA astronauts one of whom was a civilian school teacher. This was also on a Tuesday. Finally, perhaps the most infamously known Tuesday in United States history-the attack of the World Trade Center in New York City, the attack on the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and another unknown target on September 11, 2001. This event is often referred to as 9/11, and killed 2,977 people. This horrifying and unforgettable event was also on a Tuesday. A lot of things have happened on a Tuesday, and that also includes all of the life lessons that Mitch Albom was taught by his longtime friend and teacher, Morrie Schwartz. In the book Tuesdays With Morrie, there are life lessons that everyone should know. That is why the book should be read in schools to help students understand important life lessons. Some of these lessons are dealing with death, experiencing emotions, money, forgiving, and communication.

The book Tuesdays With Morrie was written by Mitch Albom. Throughout the entirety of the book, a man named Morrie Schwartz is dying amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. This disease causes the progressive degeneration of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. It usually starts with the motor neurons in the legs and causes progressive paralysis that moves from the legs up to the arms and eventually the chest. It is at this point that respiratory issues such as coughing, breathing and swallowing comes into play. With ALS the cause of death is usually from choking or a pulmonary embolism which is a blood clot in one of the major arteries or veins in the lungs. This is what happened with Morrie. The disease progressed up to his lungs, and he could not breathe as easily as he could before the disease affected his life. This eventually caused him to fall into a coma, and then he sadly but still inevitably died.

After Morrie got his diagnosis, he was on the television show “Nightline.” It was on this show that an old student of Morrie-a sports writer named Mitch Albom-saw him and reconnected with him. It was on Tuesday every week that they met and talked about major life lessons and how to deal with the hands that life gives you. Some notably being dealing with death, experiencing emotions, and forgiving.

Death is one of the hardest and most difficult things to deal with as someone lives their life. The sad part is that everything born will die, and people need to accept that fact and not focus on it and move on with their lives. There are three types of death-apoptosis, necrosis, and somatic. (Funk and Wagnalls, 2018) Apoptosis is the death of cells in an orderly fashion when they are no longer needed, because they have DNA that may cause cancer, or because they have a disease. Necrosis is the death of whole tissue or organ. Finally, somatic death is the end of all life processes in a body.

Individual cells may continue to live for several minutes after the lungs and heart stop working, so the person may be considered clinically dead, but somatic death might not have yet occurred. With Morrie, he died from necrosis. His lungs died from the paralysis from the ALS progressing up to them. Morrie had his own way of describing and dealing with death. Morrie was ok with the fact of the terminal diagnosis of his ALS. He had a lot of sayings and aphorisms that he said to comfort his longtime friend Mitch. “Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it.” (Albom, 1997, p. 80) Morrie knew that he was going to die, and he accepted that fact and tried to share his opinions on this big life lesson. “Everything that gets born, dies.” (Albom, 1997, p. 173) Morrie’s opinions on death had a huge impact on Mitch. As a matter of fact, it changed his life and helped him accept the fact of his inevitable death. It also helped him live his life to the fullest. “Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” (Albom, 1997, p. 82) Dying is one of the things that are guaranteed in life, and after that major life lesson is accepted by someone, that person can live their life to the fullest and not worry about the fact of when they are going to die because they now realize and understand the fact of their certain and inevitable death.

Emotions are what make us human. There are three primary feelings-anger, love and fear. (Funk and Wagnalls, 2018) Anger is a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility. Love is an intense feeling of deep affection. Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that something or someone is dangerous, likely to be a threat, or cause pain. it signifies a reaction involving certain mental changes, such as faster or slower pulse rate, decreased or increased activity of specific body glands, or a change in body temperature, which cause the person to react in such a way that is known as expressing emotion. Some people are told that they should hide their emotions because it is not socially acceptable.

Morrie both encouraged experiencing and embracing every human emotion possible. He believed that it was essential in being human. Morrie also believed in “detaching” himself from things. He didn’t want to cling to things, because everything is impermanent, and that is what he meant by the term detaching. He believed in experiencing emotions and detaching yourself from things at the same time.

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 myself from that emotion for a moment.’ (Albom, 1997, p. 104)

Morrie believed that emotions connect us to people. He also believed that emotions create and sustain relationships. Emotions are what make or break relationships. Emotions show people who they truly are and how they deal with certain situations. Emotions teach what to expect with each and every thing that people do. Every single person on this planet faces problems, some daily. It’s how people deal with those problems and how they react to them that shows everyone what kind of a person they are and how they react when things do not go the way that they wanted them to.

Money is good to have. In saying that, money is also misrepresented as a replacement for things that people are missing in their lives. People buy things to substitute for things they do not have. They are brainwashed by society by telling them more is good. “Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good.” (Albom, 1997, p. 124) These things are repeated and repeated and repeated until nobody even bothers to think otherwise.

Forgiveness is sometimes a difficult concept to grasp. Another sometimes difficult at times to understand and grasp is apologizing. Apologizing and forgiving go hand in hand with one another. When someone apologizes to someone else, they are admitting their words or actions were wrong and they regret any harm or hurt that it may have caused them. Apologizing may be difficult to grasp, but most of the time forgiving others for what they have done is a lot more difficult to do. It’s very hard to get over the feelings of hurt and anger of what someone else has done to someone else. It’s real forgiveness when someone hurts someone else in such a way that it scars them but they forgive them anyway.

Morrie had ideals for forgiveness that should impact the world. He thought that everyone should forgive and forget everyone even though it will be at times extremely difficult to do so. He also had the ideal of people forgiving themselves as well. He said “Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.”(Albom, 1997, 164) Morrie was a great impact on Mitch’s life, and he taught him a lot of things about life. Morrie had a death sentence, and he didn’t have a lot of regrets. The main one he had however, was not forgiving others while he had the chance. He regretted him being prideful and being focused on his vanity. One of his closest friends moved away, and he got upset because their communication channels stopped, even after his wife Charlotte had a serious operation. Charlotte and Morrie dropped their relationship with their close friends because of a lack of communication. Communication is key in any relationship or friendship. Talking to a person about your struggles and opinions is what makes a relationship work. Morrie talked about this point and relied on it throughout the last weeks of his life. Morrie didn’t realize it at the time, but his longtime friend had cancer and he died. Morrie was devastated when he found out about his friends death weeks after the funeral. This was when Morrie realized how important both communicating with people and forgiving others is.

Of all of the things that Morrie taught, communication is the most important of them all. Without communication, no one would even know who Morrie Schwartz is or was other than his students. Morrie loved talking to anyone, and it all started with him being on an episode of “Nightline.” Morrie talked about his life on television and just that made him famous. Mitch coming every Tuesday and talking with him about life and all of its’ problems was recorded and then was inevitably made into a book which taught Morrie’s ideals and opinions from beyond the grave. All of Morrie’s teachings would not be known around the world if it was not for communication.

A lot of famous things happened on a Tuesday. Black Tuesday, D-Day, the Challenger explosion, and 9/11. For two men, Tuesdays changed the lives of both of the men involved. With Mitch, the lies society was feeding him were broken down so changed his life for the better and as a result of that he tries to live his life to the fullest. Morrie’s life was changed as well by reconnecting with a long time friend and by the end of their time together, he was part of their family.

The world was also changed by the reconnection of Mitch and Morrie as well. Mitch recorded the conversations they had, and he wrote a book about all of the conversations they had. The book was originally written to help cover the costs of his medical bills. He had no idea that it would be so popular that it would hold the number one spot on the New York Times for nearly four years. This is why the book should be read and taught about in schools-to teach students about real life and how to deal with the situations that life hands them. The book Tuesdays With Morrie shows that life can be lived even though everyone has problems. It describes what a lot of life’s problems and how to deal with the circumstances that life gives people. Young people need to be prepared for all of the things that life throws at them, and this book is a great preparation tool for life not only for teens but also college students and even college graduates. So teaching it in schools would be beneficial for everyone because of all of the lessons it teaches about life and even the end of life as well.