Forgiveness In Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie is a book full of insight about how to live your life to the fullest. We all have the potential to make our day to day existence impactful, and we should do everything we can to accomplish that. Through interviewing my sister and my grandmother and reading the book, I gathered many philosophies about various aspects of life. In comparison, what my interviewees and Morrie had to say about forgiveness, family, society were very similar. First, I interviewed my sister, Jackie Marie Hulstein. She is twenty-one, and she works at the sheriff’s office as a dispatcher. She rents a house with a friend in Alton, Iowa. As an independent person with a strong personality, she isn’t afraid to be honest or to be herself. Second, I

Personally, she forgives easily and chooses to see the decency in people, leading to her allowing them back in her life. It surprised me when I discovered that my grandma had a similar response. She, too, said she was quick to forgive. However, she also realizes that nothing terrible has happened to her. In the book, Morrie also said, “Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others” because you don’t know when you will see them for the last time (Albom 164). Morrie has an interesting viewpoint when it comes to forgiveness. I agree that it is important to forgive people, even though you are allowed to take your time with it. There have been instances where I found it difficult to forgive people that hurt me for a while, but I worked continuously towards pardoning them. Due to the fact that I worked at it, I do not believe that it is unhealthy that it took a few years. Morrie, though, presents the idea, that we should forgive rather quickly, putting aside our pride, because you may come to regret petty grudges in the

Both Jackie and Marlys had nearly the same answers, and I agree with what they had to say. According to their answers, the world is better in some ways but worse in others. It is worse because there is more violence and childhood lost its innocence. My sister thinks it is better, though, because people more often accept others’ differences. My grandma said that, but she also included that kids in the Church are “freer to express their feelings and faith” (Personal Interview). When she was a child, they memorized creeds and catechisms that they would recite to explain their faith. Now, we teach students at a young age how to individualize their faith and express that. Morrie seemingly doesn’t have a strong opinion either way. He does mention that everyone is respectable until 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” (Albom 154). But more so, he believes life is what you make it. We should follow the simple rules of our communities, but do not let society decide for you what to think, how to feel, or what to