I finished reading Tuesdays with Morrie on a Monday, in a most peculiar place. At Suntec City, 2nd floor, on the bench right outside Carrefour. Well, I was waiting for a friend to finish her work, then to catch up with her. We were having our little b'lated christmas celebration. Even before I bought her a present at Suntec, I thought about the message that I want the present to carry. There were two: firstly, she is like a precious gem, and secondly, the present is to make up for all the time lost between us because I spent lesser time with her as the years get by.

After finishing Tuesdays with Morrie, only one message remains on the present that I bought for her. She is a precious gem. I figure that money cannot buy time. I have to make up for them, by really being there for her. Morrie devoted so much of his time to keeping in contact with people. His definition of a meaningful life:

Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to the community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

It is such an unbiased statement ever made, ever so true to the core. It doesn't really state the purpose of life in the specifics. Just to love others. And if the order of importance is taken into consideration, Morrie actually placed loving others first before seeking his self-interest. I guess when we find life so frustrating, so unfulfilling, that is when we're so inward looking, seeking only for the sole purpose of our life. My interpretation of Morrie's insight into this would be to look at others, seek to help others. Then there will come a meaning to your own life, to a certain extent, maybe not the full grasp of why you are placed on planet Earth, but surely of what use you can be while you are here.

And I love re-discovering what I once formulated for myself. Morrie said, "When you learn how to die, you learn how to live." I cannot agree less. Once on 19th Sept 2004, I wrote this in my Thinkpad: "Life - am I prepared to die? Only when we die, then can we grasp the meaning of eternal life to the full."

Tuesdays with Morrie. Truly a wonderful book. For once, I am not to give credits to the writer, but to the main character in the story. May he continue to live on, in the love he has so genuinely evoked in others.


posted by lil piggie at 1:18 AM