Tuesdays With Morrie Essay Research Paper Life

Tuesdays With Morrie Essay, Research Paper

Life’s Greatest Lesson

Morrie Schwartz was an intelligent, interesting senior citizen that touched

a lot of people, especially Mitch Albom. Morrie passed on a lot of his knowledge

in the last few months of his life, due to amyotrophic lareral sclerosis (ALS). This

paper will touch on Morrie’s philosophy of life, what he says is important and

valuable, and also the struggles and problems of life. I will also compare

Morrie’s message with other philosophies and also give my opinion about

Morrie’s theory of human nature and philosophy of life.

Morrie’s philosophy of life is full of many ideas and to better understand it

it’s easier to break it down into parts. One of the philosophies was to cherish

family and to be more open about your emotions so that you will not regret it

when you or a loved one dies. Another one of Morrie’s philosophies is to be

open to forgiveness the following quote shows how Morrie regrets not forgiving

one of his closest friends. “ Over the years, I met Norman a few times and he

always tried to reconcile, but I didn’t accept it. I wasn’t satisfied with his

explanation. I was prideful. Mitch…a few years ago…he died of cancer. I never

got to forgive him” (Albom p. 166). That quote showed how Morrie deeply

regrets not forgiving his friend, for something he should have, and how not

forgiving him will bother him for the rest of his life.

Another part of Morrie’s philosophy has to do with culture. The following

quote shows how strongly he felt about the way American people should live.

“You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture…..The little things I

can obey. But the big things- how we think, what we value- those you must

choose yourself. You can’t let anyone or any society determine those for you”

(Albom p.154-155). This quote shows that Morrie does not agree with the way

many American people live their life. Many let the culture tell them how to live

their life but his philosophy is that you must be your own person and don’t let

anyone else tell you how to live.

Morrie put a lot of emphasis on what is important and valuable in his

philosophy of life. One value that he felt very strongly about was that people

look at material things to judge others instead of looking on the inside and getting

to know them. One quote that supports this statement says how we should not

depend on material things to find happiness and love. “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” (Albom p. 125). This quote shows one of Morrie’s

strongest values, it tells how he felt about money and material items. Morrie felt

that people look to much at what others have and base their friends on money.

You cannot turn to cars, money, or mansions to get love and be liked by others.

If someone is your true friend they will love you for who you are and not what you

have.

Morrie also had ideas on the challenges faced by humans and our human

nature. He highlighted some of the struggles and problems faced by most

humans. The following quote shows how Morrie felt about people basing their

lives on money instead of simple pleasures. “Morrie had always been taken with

simple pleasures, singing, laughing, dancing. Now, more than ever, material

things held little or no significance…We’ve got a form of brainwashing going on in

our country…..More money is good, more property is good, more commercialism

is good…The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective

on what’s really important anymore” (Albom p. 124-125). This quote shows how

Morrie feels about the country and the way people live. He sees more pleasure

in simple things such as singing and dancing, but the American people look at

pleasure as having more money than someone else or more property. Morrie

sees this as being a big problem in the country today. He feels that people

should be themselves and have fun without looking at how much they own.

To better understand Morrie’s philosophy I will compare and contrast it

with some other philosophies. First, compare the philosophy of Karl Marx to

Morries’. One point that Marx and Morrie would agree on would probably be

what Marx calls historical determinism. Historical determinism according to Marx

is how we respond to history in predictable ways. It’s how we have freewill to

change and react to things (Stevenson p. 140). Morrie would support this theory

and could use the example of not forgiving his friend. He had the freewill to

choose wether to forgive and how he reacted when his friend died and his

chance to forgive him was gone.

The next point Marx makes is that there is no individual human nature.

Every action of every human poten

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