A Journey With My Mentor
By: Luke Goldstein
9/30/2012
How do you spend your time? Mitch Albom is living a pretty successful life until he hears some bad news. His favorite teacher, Morrie suffers from ALS, a debilitating, incurable disease which slowly destroys his body. Mitch, Morrie's former student at Brandeis University, and the narrator of the book spends his time with his dying friend. Morrie and Mitch reflect on different topics every time they meet. They share stories about various lessons in life, making it in the world.
Today’s society is always changing. These changes aren’t always positive, Mitch learns this very quickly. Mitch discovers the true meaning to living. While he visits Morrie he learns to value love over money and happiness over success. After Mitch’s uncle dies of pancreatic cancer, he abandons his failing career as a musician to become a well-paid journalist for a Detroit newspaper. This does not last for long; the union he belongs to is striking against the newspaper he works for. Mitch decides to visit Morrie. Little does he know that his life is about to change.
Take my condition. The things I am supposed to be embarrassed about now — not being able to walk, not being able to wipe my ass, waking up some mornings wanting to cry — there is nothing innately embarrassing about them. It's the same for women not being thin enough, or men not being rich enough. It's just what our culture would have you believe. Don't believe it. Morrie explains to Mitch that our culture is wrong to allow natural physical need to be embarrassing. You see, . . . you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too — even when you're in the dark. Even when you're falling. Morrie tells his story about his class lesson on trust. Mitch learns that trust is a risk