If you hold back on the emotions—if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.
Morrie explains that detaching from emotions such as fear and pain requires first experiencing those emotions fully. Once the emotion is fully experienced, the feeling can be accepted and then put aside. He is teaching himself this Buddhist practice so that he can accept his inevitable death with serenity. He notes that both pain and love can be feared emotions, pain for obvious reasons but love because this feeling potentially makes one vulnerable to emotional pain. Morrie advises against trying to avoid any emotions out of fear, including love, but instead encourages accepting and then detaching from the fear.
Morrie’s approach was exactly the opposite. Turn on the faucet. Wash yourself with the emotion. It won’t hurt you. It will only help. If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, “All right, it’s just fear. I don’t have to let it control me.”
Mitch explains how Morrie detaches from fear to conquer the emotion. First, rather than trying to avoid fearful thoughts, he fully immerses himself in the fear. Immersion allows him to realize that the fear itself is not dangerous: Fear is just an emotion. Once the fear is felt, the feeling is accepted and then set to one side. Morrie is teaching himself this practice so that he can die serenely, even if death comes via a coughing fit, which creates the terrifying sensation of drowning. He does not want to spend his final moments in this world frightened.
I told Morrie I was already feeing over the hill, much as I tried desperately to stay on top of it. . . . I had gone from being proud to say my age—because of all I had done so young—to not bringing it up, for fear I was getting too close to forty and, therefore, professional oblivion.
Mitch talks to Morrie about his own fear of aging. Mitch observes that society reveres youth and disparages or ignores the old. While not disagreeing that society seems to worship youth, Morrie thinks youth worship exemplifies another way that society emphasizes the wrong values. As Morrie points out, everyone ages, and the process can’t be helped, so fearing aging just wastes time. Also, with age comes wisdom or at least knowledge. He describes the many reasons why young people feel unhappy. While society may continue to fetishize youth, he exhorts Mitch not to envy the young.
People are only mean when they’re threatened . . . and that’s what our culture does. That’s what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself.
Morrie recognizes that people’s unkindness to one another results from fear. He notes that because of how our economy works, people have an understandable fear of losing ground. Resources are scarce. Morrie blames our culture, not the individual people, for “making money a god” in an effort to protect their own future. But he regrets the shortsightedness of materialism and strongly recommends ignoring the culture as much as possible. Instead, he believes people should create and defend their own values. Morrie adds that not caring what society thinks will result in less fear and more happiness.
We are so afraid of the sight of death . . . [A]s soon as someone dies in a hospital, they pull the sheets up over their head, and they wheel the body to some chute and push it down. . . . It’s not contagious, you know. Death is as natural as life. It’s part of the deal we made.
As someone who is soon to die, Morrie might be expected to fear the sight of death, but he does not and thinks such a fear represents yet another silly aspect of contemporary society. The fear of death suggests that people have forgotten, or would like to forget, that humans die just like everything else in nature does. Morrie advises fully accepting the reality that we will die and making peace with that fact because that, and only that, allows one to fully live.
FAQs
If you hold back on the emotions—if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.
What was Morrie's biggest fear? ›
The Seventh Tuesday We Talk about the Fear of Aging
Now, his worst fear has come true. Morrie's aide, Co nnie, must now do it for him, and he sees this as a complete surrender to the disease. He is now dependent on others for nearly all of his needs.
What is the best quote from Tuesdays with Morrie? ›
Morrie Schwartz : Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too - even when you're in the dark. Even when you're falling.
What does Morrie say Mitch is scared of? ›
Morrie and Mitch discuss many fears during their weekly conversations: the fear of aging, the fear of loneliness, the fear of death. Yet as Morrie's death becomes increasingly imminent, Mitch reveals his own greatest fear: the fear of saying goodbye. Morrie has been an incredible mentor to Mitch and many others.
What are two quotes about fear? ›
The fearful are caught as often as the bold. One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do. The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
What is a serious quote about fear? ›
"Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering." "The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." "Nothing in life is to be feared.
What does Morrie say always wins? ›
'Love wins. Love always wins. ' Morrie tells Mitch that life is full of tensions and opposites, like a wrestling match in which love always wins. Love, Morrie argues, is the most important part of life.
What does Morrie say about saying goodbye? ›
Morrie's speaking is labored and hard to understand, but he tells Mitch that Mitch is a good soul. Mitch replies that he doesn't know how to say goodbye. Morrie replies that this is how they say goodbye, and that he loves Mitch.
What is the quote from Tuesdays with Morrie about forgiveness? ›
He wrote bite-sized philosophies about living with death's shadow: "Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do"; "Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it"; "Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others"; "Don't assume that it's too late to get involved.
What are morries last words to Mitch? ›
Final answer:
Mitch recalls Morrie's words 'Love each other or perish' as he watches his ashes being placed in the ground, signifying his realization of the importance of love and relationships over materialistic pursuits in life.
Morrie tells Mitch that the happiness of youth is a farce, as not only do young people suffer very real miseries, but they do not have the wisdom of age to deal with them. Morrie has never feared aging; he embraces it.
What is the moral lesson of Tuesdays with Morris? ›
The lesson of authenticity
Authenticity lies at the heart of Morrie's philosophy. He urges us to be true to ourselves, embrace our vulnerabilities, and live with integrity. Only by being authentic can we find genuine happiness and fulfilment.
What are the 3 things to fear quote? ›
“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.” There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.
What is the best quote from feel the fear and do it anyway? ›
Feel the fear and do it anyway! The less you need someone's approval, the more you are able to love them. Taking responsibility means never blaming anyone else for anything you are being, doing, having, or feeling. THE ONLY WAY TO GET RID OF THE FEAR OF DOING SOMETHING IS TO GO OUT AND DO IT.
What are some quotes about fear and superstition? ›
Here's some more superstition-related quotes, in order of brevity, from my personal collection:
- “Fear is the lengthened shadow of ignorance.” ...
- “Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.” ...
- “God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance.” ...
- “Ignorance is the soil in which belief in miracles grows.”
“Fear is the path to the dark side … fear leads to anger … anger leads to hate … hate leads to suffering.” — "The Phantom Menace," 1999. “Judge me by my size, do you?” — "The Empire Strikes Back," 1980.
