Jackson Kuo
Mr. Sabbagh
Period 5 English 12
November 21, 2013
Tuesdays With Morrie Essay For the past couple weeks I thought reading this book Tuesdays With Morrie was going to be quite boring. I mean what can be so interesting about a man who visits a dying person every Tuesday? But then I came enjoy this book more than I expected and realized why he can be so happy when life was so unfair to Morrie. Even though I can’t fully grasp Morries pain through experience, I know what it feels like to question why it’s so unfair for me when others are doing all these other things and yet they don’t suffer like me when I’ve done nothing to deserve it. My four I’m going to be focusing on are the world, family, death, and money. Morrie looked at the world so differently when he was slowly losing his life along with his dignity. “We’ve got a form of brainwashing going on in our country,” (Morrie 124). He talks about living this life like a routine almost as if we are slowly brainwashing ourselves into doing what this world wants. Instead of us controlling our lives, the world controls us by telling us to repeat things over and over until it’s embedded into us. Morrie was trying to tell us that this world clouds our perception of what is truly important versus materialistic things. Morries message was, in short, not to become preoccupied with death and dying, but to live the life that you still have left in a meaningful and rewarding way. He believed that although death would soon take him, he wanted to teach others and share his ideas so that they could be passed on to future generations. When I see Mitch and Morrie, their relationship went far beyond that of a teacher and student. It became a sort of bond that made Mitch part of the family sort of. Morrie taught Mitch as if he was his own son with all the lessons about about the world, feeling sorry for oneself, regrets, death, family, emotions, money, marriage, and saying good-bye. “Death ends a life, not a relationship.” (Morrie Forgot what page) You could tell Mitch meant a lot to Morrie just through his daily Tuesday visits, Morrie never wanted any sympathy from Mitch but just an open heart and mind while he shared with him his strengths, weaknesses, and philosophies. The wisdom that Morrie poured out into Mitch impacted his life drastically from fearing marriage to proposing the next day.
The last line of his memoir read “the teaching goes on.” Morrie didn’t look at his death as a final departure but more as a renewal and rebirth as he wanted more people to learn from him as he left this world. I believe that when many think about death it’s a subject most don’t want to talk about because it brings out the sadness and memories within the subject death itself. Morrie saw life as a lesson to learn, share, and experience, all of these just delightfully gave excitement to him being able to share his ideas with whether it’d be a class of students or just one person willing to listen.
Money, when we all think about money it’s used as something to purchase our materialistic desires. Looking back I was told by my family that it’s something very important and powerful in this world but the more I analyzed through the years I’ve grown yes its very important and powerful but only in its own category. "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" (Morrie 125). Money can’t buy what Morrie was trying to teach and share with the world, His ideas were something only you can only learn, experience and understand or not at all. These lessons of his were more than just merely lessons they taught you how to live, and that can’t even be compared to whatever endless possibilities money possesses. Morrie made the point very precise that no matter how much money you have you’ll never be able to find the feeling you desire when you need it most.
After finishing the book I truly I was able to give my highest reverence to Morrie, he was always able to see the positives in situations and taught me a remarkable lesson. “When you learn how to die you learn how to live.” Living life to the fullest because you never know when will be your last day seemed to be what Morrie was trying to emphasize. In all, the plethora of Morries teachings has shown me a greater outlook on life and how valuable it is.

Works Cited Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays With Morrie. New York; Broadway Books, 1997.