入圍決選獎
姓  名 彭彥智 學  校 私立建台高級中學 年  級 二 年 丙 班

 

 

A Reflection on Tuesdays with Morrie

There is a well-known saying, “Living without an aim is like sailing without a compass,” and I say “Living without inspiration is like living without feelings.” Inspiration is a lamp directing our way. It can be a theory or life experiences like Morrie’s. Tuesdays with Morrie is a book about a professor sharing his life experiences and attitudes with his beloved student before death took him away. To my astonishment, it’s not a dull book trying to preach us readers lessons but a fable-like one revealing friendship, wisdom, and wonderful writing skills.

The first inspiration which Tuesdays with Morrie brings to me is friendship. In Tuesdays with Morrie, we went through with Mitch Albom a life-challenging incident, a strike, happening to him, which led to his reunion with his college professor, Morrie, who suffered from an illness depriving his life. This small act unfolded a series of conversation between an old man and a young man. On each Tuesday, the professor shared his personal understanding of life. In the end, Mitch got more than he had expected, that is, a pure friendship without status, age, and profitability because he knew about Professor Morrie from a different perspective. At last, the friendship with Professor Morrie transformed into intangible strength and inspiration to Mitch. That is, to me, a true and profound friendship.

What’s more impressive is the wisdom that Professor Morrie brought us younger generation—a new perspective of death. Normally, death is terrifying issue and we tend to avoid talking about it, not to mention facing it with an undisturbed state of mind. However, Professor Morrie taught us to embrace death after he realized death was about to come. He told Mitch that although he would feel upset because of discomfort and pain caused by the disease, he would recover and hold an optimistic attitude for every day was too precious to waste on crying. Therefore, only if we admit the existence of difficulties, such as frustration, depression, death, and so on could we uplift ourselves to perfection.

However, all of the above inspiration wouldn’t be aroused because of the author vivid description. Perfect writing skill makes readers picture. When reading this book, the conversations going on between the two characters make it easy for readers to perceive. It was as if I were on the scene. When Professor Morrie’s circumstance got worse as time passed by, I couldn’t help but worry about his health condition and that time wouldn’t be enough for him to finish sharing his life experiences. It seems that Morrie was in front of me, coughing and laughing so that it’s like we went through 14 lessons on Tuesdays with him.

A perfect novel leaves an indelible impression on its readers. Readers get sentimental and a little bit of bitterness while they also feel hope, strength, and new understanding refill them afterwards. I am sure readers will be inspired somehow after reading this book because the content of it conveys a close friendship, helps illuminate wisdom everyone should have when facing difficulties and death, and demonstrates a lively writing style to make readers feel the same way as characters. Therefore, Tuesdays with Morrie thus is a book worth reading.