Tuesdays with Morrie (2)

The first Tuesday we talk about the world:

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 don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, 'Love is the only rational act.'

The second Tuesday we talk about feeling sorry for yourself:

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 you're in the dark. Even when you're falling.

The third Tuesday we talk about regrets:

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." - Henry Adams

The fourth Tuesday we talk about Death:

The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.

The fifth Tuesday we talk about family.

The sixth Tuesday we talk about emotions:

Detaching myself. You know what the Buddhists say? Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent. 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. 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 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.'

Morrie always made good peace. At Brandeis, he taught classes about social psychology, mental illness and health, group process. They were light on what you'd call "career skills" and heavy on "personal development." And because of this, business and law students today might look at Morrie as foolishly naive about his contributions. Then again, how many business or law students ever visit their old professors once they leave?

The seventh Tuesday we talk about the fear of aging:

Forget what the culture says. I have ignored the culture much of my life. I am not going to be ashamed. What's the big deal? I began to enjoy my dependency. It's like going back to being a child again. We all know how to be a child. It's inside all of us. For me, it's just remembering how to enjoy it. 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.

In addition to all the miseries, the young are not wise. They have very little understanding about life. Who wants to live every day when you don't know what's going on? When people are manipulating you, telling you to buy this perfume and you'll be beautiful, or this pair of jeans and you'll be sexy - and you believe them! It's such nonsense.

I embrace aging. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you'd always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.

But if aging were so valuable, why do people always say, "Oh, if I were young again."

You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven't found meaning. Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. All younger people should know something. If you're always battling against getting older, you're always going to be unhappy, because it will happen anyhow. The fact is you are going to die eventually. It won't matter what you tell yourself.

The eighth Tuesday we talk about money:

If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at 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.

Giving to other people is what makes me feel alive. Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else' things. On the contrary, you'll be overwhelmed with what comes back.

Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn. - Mahatma Gandhi