Tuesdays with Morrie excerpts

Been reading the book "tuesdays with Morrie". I haven't gotten all the way through it yet, but wanted to capture a few quotes that I thought were interesting.

"Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, 'Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?" (p81)

I think I fail to reflect and meditate on life on a regular basis enough. It was one of my goals a while back, perhaps I should try it out.

"Learn how to die, and you learn how to live" (p83)

My take on this is that once you really truly accept that you're going to die, you also can start making choices about how you want to meet that end and all the things you want to do leading up to that.

"Looking back makes you competitive" (p120

I love this one the most. If you really think about it, you really get competitive when you start thinking about how two people could have started at the same starting point but ended up in totally different places later in life. It's valuable to reflect and learn from your experiences, but if you keep looking back and can't let things go you'll constantly be tortured by feelings of inadequacy and (more importantly) you won't be spending that time thinking about how to live the rest of your life. You go back and mentally try to make decisions in the past, when what you should be doing is making decisions and taking action in the present.

"If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone." (p127 - 128)

I like that comment about the open heart allowing you to float equally between people. I think people are really drawn to others that are honest and open and that really are there with you in the moment (as opposed to being off in their head thinking about something else).

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