Essay Summary of Tuesdays with Morrie

Christina An Weiss AIC September 9, 2010 Tuesdays with Morrie Love is a powerful emotion and an essential human need. Without loving the ones around them and their community, people are unable to live their lives to the fullest. In Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie, love is a most meaningful and dominant message. We feel comfort and connection with love in our lives. As Morrie says, if we devote love into our lives, we are able to fulfill our lives. In reality, many people work up until their last breath to have more and more money. However, when they look back, they realized they never lived their lives with fulfillment.
Money may buy them materialistic needs but love and affection are able to bring purpose and meaning. According to Morrie, “The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning” (43). By devoting himself to love the others around him, Morrie was able to create “a cocoon of human activities – conversations, interaction, affection – and it filled his life like an overflowing soup bowl” (43).
The humans believe only money can compose accomplished lives. However, they do not notice how powerful love can be; love itself is able to aid them into creating their own world, a world they wanted. If they devote their love to their community and the ones around them, they will be surprised how fulfilling their lives can become. Love is not only just pouring affection to others; understanding, guidance, comfort are also needed. These are small step people must take to create their own world.

Humans need connection and comfort from the ones around us. Despite the far distance, love is still possible. I lived in 2 different places. I was born in Korea and lived for 8 years. Then I moved to Toronto, Canada, and lived for about 4 years. Now I live in Naperville, Illinois. We are still able to feel love among us because we created our friendship deep enough that where ever we are, we still feel the connection and comfort. If this world did not have love among people, the humans would be nothing but heartless robots.
One of my favorite books is The Great Gatsby. This novel talk about how a man, Gatsby, becomes rich just for the girl, Daisy, he fell in love with. Even though he has a lot of money and throws ravishing parties every day, nothing can fill his life except for the love from his girl. Gatsby has a huge, exquisite house. It was big yet empty. His house was always full of people who came to his party. Gatsby does not mind random people coming to his party. He just wanted his life to be filled with people. However, that never happened.
He house was filled, but never his life. His life only chased his love for Daisy, and never for the people around him. Gatsby’s materialistic things never satisfied his life. He never tried to make friends and therefore, he was never happy. Gatsby’s ravishing yet empty life shows us, that his outer shows others wealth and power. Nonetheless, his inside was just a hollow body. We can learn that even when people have the money they can spend on anything, money does not create a fulfilled life that everyone dreams of.
People can fulfill their lives if they just took the time to look back and created more deep relationships. Love is not just for couples, or marriages. It is also significant in the communities and the ones who are always there. People around the world want so many materialistic things. But when they look back again, they want more friends and more relationships. Everyone will soon realize how much time they might have wasted running toward for materialistic things. If the humans let love come in, they realize that “love is the only rational act” (52).