Tuesdays with Morrie - Synthesis Midterm Paper

Racheal Oliveira

Midterm Paper

6 July 2011

Synthesis Midterm Paper

There were indeed many life lessons that were verbalized and illustrated in the book "Tuesdays with Morrie". There were several that stood out and made me think a little more deeply than just reading it and taking it in as information. On Mitch's twelfth Tuesday with Morrie, he talks about forgiving yourself before you die and then forgive others. (pg164). There was a small jolt that I experienced when I read this statement. I have heard it in many different contexts such as "forgive and forget". Seeing it as Morrie stated it sparked a different meaning for me. On the surface, this lesson can be seen as a "no brainer"; of course we can forgive ourselves before we die then forgive others. But the whole concept of forgiveness is supposed to be for the betterment of ourselves. Forgiving others is supposed to help us heal from the hurt that the incident caused and in life, we feel like this is enough. However, Morrie put it in a way that it is necessary for us to forgive ourselves. Forgiving others before we die can be problematic because, what if we die before we can forgive ourselves? I need to apply this lesson to my life in a literal sense because if I do not recognize my part in the incident where forgiveness is needed, then I would not give thought to the need to forgive myself. Knowing that it is ok to forgive yourself will help us realize that there will be things that we have to forgive ourselves for. There are many times when we feel that if someone has treated us unfairly, we easily feel that we will never forgive them. More so, we can sometimes feel it is impossible to for treating someone wrong. In my life, I am having a difficult time forgiving my father for the numerous things he has done to me. At this time in my life, I feel as though I may never be able to forgive him. I hope that with time, I will be able to forgive him, as time heals all wounds. We sometimes also make the effort to forgive but we vow to never forget what a person has done to us. In doing this, we put a wall up against that person to guard our hearts. With this, we must to ask ourselves: is forgiving without forgetting really forgiving? Morrie was trying to get us to realize how much better our lives could be if we forgive quickly and continue on with our lives. With all the time wasted feeling guilty for mistakes or mishaps, we can adopt this lesson and add enjoyment to our lives. This lesson made me make the commitment to forgive myself as soon as I need to, because if I can forgive myself then I can forgive others. Forgiving ourselves before we die, that is the true lesson that we need to learn. Morrie had time to forgive himself before he died. Many of us may not be so blessed to have that opportunity to forgive. In his story about forgiveness, he talks about a friend who was too stubborn to forgive and had later died. Morrie found that he spent time worrying about it but finally learned to forgive himself and the pain of that incident was not as bad.

Learn to detach (pg103). This lesson is easier said than