Essay on Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albon

In the Ninth Tuesday, Morrie mention that he “believed in being fully present,” as I read this myself I could see that whenever I spoke to people, I was fully present in conversations with my family or friends. There were moments in which I look back and see that I was too focused on my problems or daydreaming that I did not have the time to pay attention to what others told me. There are moments in which, I will be having a conversation with someone, and I will be texting someone else and not pay attention to the other

All three of the authors use literary devices in their own way to do a variety of things, whether that be getting a certain message across, exaggerating something, or showing the narrator’s reactions to certain things. In all three of the stories, the authors make use of flashbacks. In Big Boy, the author provides a flashback of his mother telling him that everyone defecates. He does this to show the reader that he understands that fecal matter is normal, but he still doesn’t want to be blamed for the situation he was in. In Tuesday’s with Morrie, several flashbacks are provided between all the chapters to give the reader some insight as to how Mitch and Morrie’s friendship grew. In The Last Lecture, the author talks about his days playing football as a teenager and he often references back to things his coach did. He talks about his coach’s antics in order to get across that everything can be a learning experience.

During the sixth Tuesday that Mitch went to visit Morrie, they talked about emotions and detachment. Morrie tells Mitch about how he learned to detach himself from his frightening experiences so that he may accept his impermanent life, and embrace his death, which he knows may come at any moment. “Detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrates you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.” (Page 96) In detaching from oneself, Morrie means that one can step out of his/her physical feelings and into one's own state of consciousness, so that he/she may gain perspective and composure during a stressful situation. This is how Morrie was able to find peace and relaxation within him even through his physical illness.

Many people learn many things in many different ways. Most learn in school or church, some learn in asking questions, but I believe the best lessons are taught from a good friend. Tuesdays With Morrie is a true story of the remarkable lessons taught by a dying professor, Morrie Schwartz, to his pupil, Mitch Albom. Morrie teaches Mitch the lessons of life, lessons such as death, fear, aging, greed, marriage, family, society, forgiveness, and a meaningful life. This is a story of a special bond of friendship that was lost for many years, but never forgotten and simply picked up again at a crucial time of both Morrie's and Mitch's lives.

Morrie was an old man, and he was dying of ALS or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Mitch Albom was a workaholic who loved his work too much. Mitch had kept a promise to his professor to keep in touch with him, but ever did, and sixteen years later, Mitch turned on the TV one day to find his old professor, Morrie, talking about his final project: death. This sparked Mitch to think about his old professor, and would soon be the inspiration the famous book Tuesdays with Morrie, based on the true story about Morrie’s last lesson, teaching Mitch about life.

The birth of Facebook ignited human selfishness. Since 2004, the social media platform unceasingly has stripped the culture and exposed human cruelty. Even without the unfolding of Twitter or Snapchat, people live in a world where empathy remains elusive. In Tuesdays With Morrie, the former Brandeis professor, Morrie Schwartz, believed that culture has created an “It’s-all-about-me-I-should-be-better-than-anybody-else” era. This is neoliberalism. The epidemic continues to spread, and as a result, it pulls society apart, causing predicaments in the economic, political, and social realm. Tuesdays with Morrie indirectly discusses neoliberalism, an ideology that gradually but immensely contributes to mankind’s destruction.

Howard Schultz stated, “In times of adversity and change, we really discover who we are and what we’re made of “. Adversity is a time when everything seems to be very bad. It is a time where most want to give up because it is too hard for them to go on. Morrie Schwartz and Elie Wiesel are both faced with adversity, but in different ways. In the novel, Tuesdays with Morrie, written by Mitch Albom, Morrie is faced with a disease that is killing him. In the novel, Night, written by Elie Wiesel, Elie, himself, is faced with death and does not really know he is facing death. Both men are facing a huge difficulties, but they both handled it in different ways. Morrie and Elie are both faced with adversity, but they both use faith and other people

Adversity is described by Dictionary.com as “adverse or unfavorable fortune or fate; a condition marked by a misfortune, calamity, or distress.” Adversity can happen everywhere among us and can take the chance to hit us when we are having a good day. In the books Tuesdays with Morrie and Night, adversity hits these characters hard. In Tuesdays with Morrie, the author Mitch Albom writes about his experience with his beloved college professor, Morrie Schwartz, and Morrie’s battles with a disease called ALS. In Night, the author and the main character, Elie Wiesel, goes through adversity as well at a concentration camp during the Holocaust. Handling the adversity is rather difficult, especially when we want to give up after we are hit with a traumatic blow. However, these characters in these two completely different books, show that adversity cannot bring them down.

The setting is late of 1979. A young boy visits with an elderly man every Tuesday to be enlightened on the meaning of life. His name is Mitchell, but friends call him ?Mitch.? The greatest lesson of life is life.

One of the first realizations Mitch has on life is that he has wasted his time attempting to become wealthy and spending money on materialistic things. An example is when they met on their third Tuesday, Morrie explains that “We’re so wrapped up in egotistical things...we’re involved in trillions of little acts that just keep going. So we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?” in order to prompt Mitch into believing that his life is full of egotistical choices that are not the key to having a fulfilling life (64-65). Instead,

Mitch Albom’s novel Tuesdays with Morrie delves into the complexities of the human condition from the stand point of an elderly man that is slowly dying from the disease ALS, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The man, Morrie, decides to spend the last of his time on earth spreading his wisdom to as many people as possible, teaching them a lot about the importance of life, as well as what is necessary to live life to the fullest and be truly happy. What Morrie teaches these people is something great poets have been doing for a very long time. In the novel Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom expresses themes and ideas in everyday life that relate back to poetry and can be applied to one’s perspective of the human condition.

When was the last time that you had a true heart to heart with someone? When did you last truly feel an emotion? How many times have you sent a laugh to someone through the phone without even smirking? The world we live in is becoming less and less human. As technologies develop we develop with them and find ourselves to be lost without electronics. This is leading us down a path that will dehumanize the modern population leaving the human race more like robots. I believe that Tuesdays with Morrie may be able to help change the path that we are on.

In the book, Tuesdays with Morrie the readers follow the lives and relationship of Morrie Schwartz and Mitch Albom. Morrie was a professor in Brandeis University where Mitch attended. The story goes on as to how they lose touch over the years and eventually find each other again and build a strong relationship. This friendship begins when Mitch finds out Morrie is sick and his health is slowly deteriorating. Over the weeks, the two-new found friend will hold conversations about love, life and family.

“I leaned in and kissed him closely, my face against his, whiskers on whiskers, skin on skin, holding it there, longer than normal, in case it gave him even a split second of pleasure” from Mitch Albom’s novel, Tuesdays with Morrie (2007). Facing death and the unknown, Morrie talks with his pupil, Mitch, about his (Morrie’s) path through ageing and then, to death. An inspiring novel of a former professor and sharing his perspectives with a younger, man’s heart softening with the professor’s words of wisdom. Discussing ageing and what it means, fearing ageing, developing a fulfilled life, death and the meaning thereof, fearing death, and obtaining a positive attitude about an inevitable life event, are all important aspects to communicate with others.

In an effort to share the “last class” he had with his college sociology professor, Mitch Album wrote, “Tuesdays with Morrie.” This moving account of the life lessons that Morrie taught him is a beautiful tribute to a man whose compassion and love for humanity made him a favorite among those who knew him. Though stricken with the debilitating disease ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) and knowing death was swiftly approaching Morrie continued to help others until his body no longer allowed him to do so. Album uses time sequence, characterization and point of view to chronicle the experiences he had and the lessons he learned while visiting with his friend every Tuesday during that