MY: Tuesdays with Morrie (II)...

Here are more points to ponder... :-))

We Talk about How Love Goes On

"I believe in being fully present," Morrie said. That means you should be with the person you're wih. When I'm talking to you now Mitch, I try to keep focused only on what is going on between us. I am not thinking about something we said last week. I am not thinking of what's coming up this Friday. I am not thinking about doing another Koppel show, or about what medications I'm taking.

"Part of the problem, Mitch, is that everyone is in such a hurry," Morrie said. People haven't found meaning in their lives, so they're running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running." Once you start running, I said, it's too hard to slow yourself down.

We Talk about Marriage

"there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage; If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.

"And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?"

Yes?

"Your belief in the importance of your marriage."

We Talk about Our Culture

"People are only mean when they're threatened," he said later that day, "and that's what our culture does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture."

"Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you."

We Talk about Forgiveness

"There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness. These things" - he sighed - "thee things I so regret in my life. Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do?"

"It's not just other people we need to forgive, Mitch," he finally whispered. We also need to forgive ourselves."

Ourselves?

"Yes. For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done. You can't get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened. That doesn't help you when you get to where I am.

We Talk about the Perfect Day

"As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on - in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here."

"In business, people negotiate to win. They negotiate to get what they want. Maybe you're too used to that. Love is different. Love is when you are as concerned about someone else's situation as you are about your own".

I heard a nice little story the other day," Morrie says. He closes his eyes for a moment and I wait. 

"Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air - until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore.

' "My God, this is terrible," the wave says. "Look what's going to happen to me!"

"Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, "Why do you look so sad?"

"The first wave says, "You don't understand We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?"

"The second wave says, "No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean." '

I smile. Morrie closes his eyes again.

"Part of the ocean," he says, "part of the ocean." I watch him breathe, in and out, in and out.

~ MT @ Malaysia

~~ Ampang, Selangor

~ To Travel is To Discover Oneself ~