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Five People You Meet In Heaven Lessons

Good Essays

According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, a lesson is “something learned by study or experience.” Many books teach lessons that affect the readers’ life as well as the character’s life, and the lessons are learned through past experiences. Connecting lessons that the characters face in the book with someone’s real life experiences strongly captures the readers’ attention because it makes the book relatable. Nevertheless, The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom teaches three lessons that are important to know and remember in life. While the main character, Eddie, goes visits the five different people he is connected to in heaven, he learns a new lesson each time. In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, both Eddie and I have been affected …show more content…

The first important lesson is the tale of sacrifice. The second person whom Eddie meets in heaven is his commanding officer, the Captain. He teaches Eddie that making sacrifices is part of life, and sometimes a person has to in order to prevent something worse from happening. The book supports the previous idea when the Captain says to Eddie, “ ‘ You didn’t get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little Sacrifices. Big sacrifices’ “ (Albom 93). The Captain explains to Eddie that he did not shoot his leg for nothing. He was trying to stop him from killing himself by going into the fire to save a little girl who may or may not have been there. He teaches Eddie that sometimes it is necessary to make small sacrifices if it means helping someone else, and later on those choices should not be regretted. The lesson of sacrifice causes Eddie to become enraged, but also makes him realize that the Captain had good intentions and was actually trying to save him. The book supports statement by saying, “He felt a welling of something inside him that he had not felt in many years: a fierce, surging flood of anger, and a desire to hurt something” (Albom 86). When Eddie learns about his leg, his first emotion is anger and violence. Eddie does not yet know why the Captain shot him, and he lunges at him out of pure anger. However, the Captain explains to Eddie that he was obsessed with saving the girl in the fire, and he hurt other soldiers when they tried to stop him. This is when Eddie realizes that the Captain shot his leg to save his life. The lesson of sacrifice applies to my life because now I am able to realize that sometimes people in my life have to sacrifice little things for something of a much larger importance. For example, my mom works eight hours every day to help support my brother and I. She sacrifices

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