Tuesdays With Morrie is a short memoir book written and compiled by the famous author and journalist Mitch Albom. It was published in 1997 featuring Morrie Schwartz, Albom's sociology professor while he was studying at Brandeis university. This book presents two contrasting character, a young man who was full of life, chasing his ambition while having existential crisis about his life and an old man, on the death's door who inspired others on how he view death. The young man was Albom himself who one day stumbled upon his old dear professor, Morrie Schwartz. To him, Schwartz was the mentor of his life that he lost track of but eventually found again. Morrie was on a show called "Nightline" where Morrie talks about his ALS and about death and living. When the show was aired, Mitch was flipping through channels and he heard from the TV" Who is Morrie Schwartz?". Then, another day Albom stumbled upon Morrie who was sitting near a driveway with his family. Eventually their relationship rekindle and they began discussing various topics every Tuesday before Morrie's passing.

Albom wrote a list that includes : Death, Fear, Aging, Greed, Marriage, Family, Forgiveness, Society, A meaningful life. From those lists, they started talking one by one and each Tuesday presents a new life lesson from Morrie. Perhaps some of us have that person like Morrie in our life— I do and did. I have a dear friend, a mentor and our relationship was much like that. I never really got to ask something like Albom but there were a lot of talks that we have similar to what Morrie and Albom had. It's why the book resonates with me personally.

Tuesdays With Morrie presents a wake up call that someday, eventually we're facing death and it's not something to be afraid of. Morrie, in his words, mentioned that he eventually decided to live on his own term before his passing. And on a few more passages he also discusses culture and community that I come to enjoy reading about and finding my answer.

Sometimes I had a lengthy discussion about a culture with a friend. I realized early on that despite our differences in our appearance, we're all alike. It doesn't matter where you go, one way or another you find similar problems and this was something Morrie mentioned in the book that eventually every society has its own problem. Certainly maybe law is the only constraint where you can't really create your own culture but a small work can ripple into a big one and this is something I have come to witness and also agreed on.

Every society has its own problems. The way to do it, I think,isn't to run away. You have to work at creating your own culture.

In another chance he also emphasized the idea of speaking up on yourself and quitting a culture that doesn't serve you well. Morrie is a proponent of love and he thinks that love trumps everything. That in the end, it's not money or materialistic things that matters. At the same time, he was talking about how in America, people were constantly talked into more consumerism and being lied to that it would make them happy. He mentioned that we have to be honest with ourselves on what we need and not what we want. Maybe after all we don't need expensive big houses with cold and empty rooms.

Last but not least, this is the quote in the book that I think is quite profound.

If you have not read this book, I am suggesting that you do because this book is pretty short and packed with wisdom. It's certainly not your typical self-help book because it seems to be marketed that way. Somehow I was highly skeptical of it because although Mitch Albom piqued the interest of many, I wasn't. Not until today when I decided to give it a try. I ended up resonating with his story and that I too have that mentor that now is not here anymore — who is leaving a lot of wisdom on life that I am cherishing until today. This book is available on project gutenberg and open library.