Tuesdays With Morrie Life Lesson

C.S Lewis once said, “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” In the biography “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom, Morrie, an old man is diagnosed with a fatal disease and has to choose between living out his final days on a bed, or make an impact on the world by helping people overcome their problems. Because of his decision to continue living his life, we can confirm that the greatest life lesson from this book is basically what C.S Lewis said: you are never too old to stop living life. The author also uses many literary devices to prove that this is the lesson to be learned.

One instance where we can see Morrie living life even after his illness doesn’t let him do too much is when people are sending letters back from around the world addressing their problems. The text reads, “‘What’s the first letter?’ Morrie said. A colleague read a note from a woman named Nancy, who had lost her mother to ALS. She wrote to say how much she had suffered through the loss and how she knew that Morrie must be suffering, too. And she was right, he was struggling. Every letter took nearly ten minutes to write back, and was usually only a couple sentences. Morrie wouldn’t stop though. Each letter added to his purpose in the world. As long as Morrie had letters to write, he had something to do in life” (Albom 85). Morrie has just sat down to write back letters from people that suffered a loss or want to talk to him. Obviously, Morrie has a lot of letter like these because he said “What’s the first letter?” From this piece of evidence, it is clear that Morrie does not want to lie on his deathbed for the rest of his life, but wants to do something with the time he has left. Even if he’s not going on a treasure hunt, he is contributing to the world by sending back letters to people in pain, which is more than what most people his age and illness do. To show that this is the life lesson, the author shows the activity Morrie is doing, and immediately after explains how it has something to do with his goal in life. This emphasizes that Morrie is doing something in life because it shows how he is struggling to do these normal activities, but how it gives him something to look forward to in life.

Another instance where we can see Morrie living life is when he is having chats with his visitors and giving them advice in their life. The advice Morrie gives is, “‘Life is a series of pulls back and forth… A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. Most of us live somewhere in the middle. A wrestling match…Which side win? Love wins. Love always wins.’ After he was finished with his first patient, he’d call in the next, then the next, and he’d keep talking with a smile on his face ” (Albom 40). In this text, Morrie is giving a piece of advice to one of the many well wishers that visit his home. Morrie is living his life to the fullest by giving young people the advice they need, which can be more valuable than money and materialistic thing. In a way, by spending time with people that need help, Morrie is living a more purposeful life than most people his age. The advice he gives and the people he helps surely shows that Morrie is living life to the fullest by doing whatever he can. Not only did this text show him helping one person with his problem, but also described the endless amounts of people that kept coming in to see him. The author describes Morrie’s day so much and the amount of people that come to see Morrie as a literary technique to show us how Morrie is really living his life to the fullest.

The greatest life lesson that can be learned from this book is that you are never too old to stop living life. Through two of many pieces of evidence, we can see how Morrie is living his life even though he can barely move due to his illness. While some may say Morrie didn’t go on a great adventure or relax in a foreign country, he did spend the rest of his life helping others and inspiring others to keep on living when it all seems hopeless. While there were many life lessons throughout the book, this was by far the most valuable and obvious one in there. Clearly, this was the main life lesson to be learned from the book, and the author used many literary devices to prove this.