I’d forgotten how heartbreaking the story Tuesdays with Morrie is. I saw the play at Manitoba Theatre Centre a few years ago, so when I recently found the book at a second-hand bookstore, I snatched it up. Last week I started reading it… it is one of the sweetest stories.
This quote from Mitch Albom really resounded with me – and I am sure it will resound with many others, as well:
I buried myself in accomplishments, because with accomplishments, I believed I could control things, I could squeeze in every last piece of happiness before I got sick and died, like my uncle before me, which I figured was my natural fate.
How do you feel about that line?
It’s a great line, and I revisit it weekly. There are many more notable lines in that book, but nearly every line of, For One More Day is that poignant.
SO many great lines in the book! I hadn’t expected to enjoy it so much but it was really a wonderful examination of life.
In a world without absolute values, but where we largely rely on “evidence” to “prove” things, accomplishments that we can verify and demonstrate are sometimes the only ones that feel real. When some of the greatest things we ever do go unnoticed, but we get so much more credit for things that were simply handed to us… it’s easier to pursue that which people reinforce as valuable. If everybody else around you thinks it’s important, who are you to disagree? Who are you, one individual, to know true value?
To those without religion, without absolute morality or purpose… what else is there but the accomplishments while you live? Value is relative, and who’s to say your relativity is better than anybody else’s, or the expectations or your society? If nothing else, on my dying day, maybe I would rather say… “At least I did this.” Some sense of accomplishment may be all we can hope for, whatever accomplishment(s) it is we aim for.
Ha! Yes. That’s an interesting perspective… I think the problem is when we focus on the accomplishment “for the sake of” the accomplishment itself, rather than what it actually IS. Doing it just to do “something”, even though it’s meaningless to us (and to society). If we’re going to rack up the accomplishments, I think we’d all lead much happier lives if we at least make them accomplishments that we feel passion for.
By the way, have you read Jack London’s “The Sea Wolf”? Much of the philosophical discussions in that book go along similar lines to what you’re talking about here… I think you’d really enjoy it.
Reading for enjoyment? Something of my own choosing? Hmmm. That’s a novel concept. Remind me over the summer and I’ll see if I can squeeze it in. Hadn’t heard of it before though.