Thoughts from Morrie

Still reading "Tuesdays with Morrie" and his wisdom is definitely something to ponder. Some thoughts:

On really feeling emotion:

"We feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don't let those tears come because we are not supposed to cry. Or how we feel a surge of love for a partner but we don't say anything because we're frozen with the fear of what those words might do to the relationship.

Morrie's approach was exactly the opposite. Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won't hurt you. It will only help."

He's so right. So many of us are afraid to feel, to express and to live, our emotions. Why are we afraid to tell someone we love them? Why are we afraid to cry? We bottle it up inside and it scares us to feel.

On embracing 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, you know. 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."

Why don't people want to be old?

Because people "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. You can't wait until sixty-five."

I guess, if you know that you have really lived each day of your life, there is no need to be young, to hold onto your youth. If you know that you have done all you can do with each moment, then you have no need to be young, you can look back and see that you have lived your life to the fullest and that you have no regrets about wasting time. I hope to be able to say, when I'm sixty-five, that I lived a meaningful life.