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Status Will Get You Nowhere. Only An Open Heart Will Allow You To Float Equally Between Everyone.
-Mitch Albom
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Status Will Get You

Mitch Albom
...
Status Will Get You Nowhere. Only An Open Heart Will Allow You To Float Equally Between Everyone.

Understanding the Quote: "status will get you nowhere. only an open heart will allow you..."

This quote by Mitch Albom reflects deeply on the theme of heart. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Heart, Open Heart, Floats, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Mitch Albom interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Mitch Albom

Mitch Albom is celebrated for insightful thoughts on heart and open heart. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Heart
Open Heart
Floats
More From Mitch Albom
You See, You Closed Your Eyes. That Was The Difference. Sometimes You Cannot Believe What You See, You Have To Believe What You Feel. And If You Are Ever Going To Have Other People Trust You, You Must Feel That You Can Trust Them, Too--even When You’re In The Dark. Even When You’re Falling.
Love
Life
Trust
You Can't Get Stuck On What Should Have Happened. That Doesn't Help You.
Should Have
Helping
Stuck
Critics Have A Problem With Sentimentality. Readers Do Not. I Write For Readers.
Writing
Problem
Critics
But There's A Story Behind Everything. How A Picture Got On A Wall. How A Scar Got On Your Face. Sometimes The Stories Are Simple, And Sometimes They Are Hard And Heartbreaking. But Behind All Your Stories Is Always Your Mother's Story, Because Hers Is Where Yours Begin.
Mother
Wall
Simple
He Never Spoke Of That Night Again, Not To Your Mother, Not To Anyone Else. He Was Ashamed For Her, For Mickey, For Himself. In The Hospital, He Stopped Speaking Altogether. Silence Was His Escape, But Silence Is Rarely A Refuge. His Thoughts Still Haunted Him.' ~pg 139
Mother
Night
Silence
When You Are Measuring Life, You Are Not Living It.
Measuring
With Endless Time, Nothing Is Special. With No Loss Or Sacrifice, We Can’t Appreciate What We Have
Loss
Sacrifice
Endless Time
Each Affects The Other, And The Other Affects The Next, And The World Is Full Of Stories, But The Stories Are All One.
Stories
World
Next
I Traded Lots Of Dreams For A Bigger Paycheck, And I Never Even Realized I Was Doing It.
Dream
Bigger
Paychecks
We All Know How To Be A Child. It's Inside All Of Us. For Me, It's Just Remembering How To Enjoy It.
Children
Remember
Enjoy
Holding On To Things Only Breaks Your Heart.
Heart
Holding On
Break
...the Human Spirit Knows, Deep Down That All Lives Intersect.
Spirit
Humans
Knows
The Truth Is, When Our Mothers Held Us, Rocked Us, Stroked Our Heads -none Of Us Ever Got Enough Of That. We All Yearn In Some Way To Return To Those Days When We Were Completely Taken Care Of - Unconditional Love, Unconditional Attention. Most Of Us Didn't Get Enough.
Mother
Taken
Unconditional Love
Your Voice Will Come. We All Go Through The Same Thing. You Cannot Talk When You First Arrive." He Smiled. "it Helps You Listen.
Voice
Firsts
Helping
Have You Found Someone To Share Your Heart With? Are You Giving To Your Community? Are You At Peace With Yourself? Are You Trying To Be As Human As You Can Be?
Heart
Found Someone
Giving
The Most Inspirational Man I Knew Only Reached His Potential By Helping A Child Reach His.
Children
Men
Helping
If We Tend To The Things That Are Important In Life, If We Are Right With Those We Love, And Behave In Line With Our Faith, Our Lives Will Not Be Cursed With The Aching Throb Of Unfulfilled Business. Our Words Will Always Be Sincere, Our Embraces Will Be Tight. We Will Never Wallow In The Agony Of ‘i Could Have, I Should Have’. We Can Sleep In A Storm. And When Its Time, Our Goodbyes Will Be Complete.
Goodbye
Sleep
Should Have
One Day Can Bend Your Life.
One Day
One More Day
In College, I Had A Course In Latin, And One Day The Word "divorce" Came Up. I Always Figured It Came From Some Root That Meant "divide." In Truth, It Comes From "divertere," Which Means "to Divert." I Believe That. All Divorce Does Is Divert You, Taking You Away From Everything You Thought You Knew And Everything You Thought You Wanted And Steering You Into All Kinds Of Other Stuff, Like Discussions About Your Mother's Girdle And Whether She Should Marry Someone Else.
Positive
Mother
Latin
Mortality Means You Don't Have Forever To Work Things Out. You Can Live Your Life Unexamined But Then On The Last Day You're Going To Think: 'i've Left Things A Little Late.
Mean
Thinking
Forever
How Could He Find Perfection In Such An Average Day? Then I Realized This Was The Whole Point.
Average
Perfection
I Realized
I Think What You Notice Most When You Haven’t Been Home In A While Is How Much The Trees Have Grown Around Your Memories.
Memories
Home
Thinking
You Can Be A Mama's Boy, Be A Daddy's Boy, But You Can't Be Both. So You Cling To The One You Think You Might Lose.
Boys
Thinking
Daddy
Once, Lovers On Faraway Shores Sat By Candlelight And Dipped Ink To Parchment, Writing Words That Could Not Be Erased. They Took An Evening To Compose Their Thoughts, Maybe The Next Evening As Well.
Writing
Next
Evening
Small Towns Are Like Metronomes; With The Slightest Flick, The Beat Changes.
Towns
Small Town
Beats
What You Have Done To This Point Cannot Be Undone. What You Do Next... It Is Still Unwritten.
Done
Next
Stills
You're Not A Wave, You're A Part Of The Ocean.
Ocean
Wave
Ocean Wave
But They Wanted You. Time Is Not Something You Give Back. The Very Next Moment May Be Answer To Your Prayer. To Deny That Is To Deny The Most Important Part Of The Future.
Prayer
Giving
Important
The Length Of Your Days Does Not Belong To You.
Doe
Length
Everyone Is In Such A Hurry. People Haven’t Found Meaning In Their Lives, So They’re Running All The Time Looking For It. They Think The Next Car, The Next House, The Next Job. Then They Find Those Things Are Empty, Too, And They Keep Running. Once You Start Running, It’s Hard To Slow Yourself Down.
Running
Jobs
Thinking
What She Mostly Wanted, He Learned, Was The Same Thing Many People Want--someone To Notice She Was There.
People
Want
Wanted
You've Lived Through A Lot Of Wars, I Said. "yes." Do They Ever Make More Sense? "no.
War
Said
God Sings, We Hum Along, And There Are Many Melodies, But It's All One Song - One Same, Wonderful, Human Song.
Song
Wonderful
Melody
I Thought About The Days I Had Handed Over To A Bottle..the Nights I Can't Remember..the Mornings I Slept Thru..all The Time Spent Running From Myself.
Running
Morning
Night
That Kind Of Love - The Kind You Realize You Already Have By The Life You've Created Together - That's The Kind That Lasts.
Together
Lasts
Kind
I Made Such A Fool Of Myself,” She Lamented. “love Does Not Make You A Fool.” “he Didn’t Love Me Back.” “that Does Not Make You A Fool, Either.” “just Tell Me …” Her Voice Cracked. “when Does It Stop Hurting?” “sometimes Never.
Hurt
Voice
Doe
It's Like Going Back To Being A Child Again. Someone To Bathe You. Someone To Lift You. Someone To Wipe You. We All Know How To Be A Child. It's Inside All Of Us. For Me, It's Just Remembering How To Enjoy It.
Children
Wipe
Remember
But Then She Did. She Died. No More Visits, No More Phone Calls. And Without Even Realizing It, I Began To Drift, As If My Roots Had Been Pulled, As If I Were Floating Down Some Side Branch Of A River.
Phones
Roots
Rivers
But Man Invents Nothing God Did Not Create First.
Men
Firsts
I Made The Wrong Choice ," I Whispered. My Mother Shook Her Head. "a Child Should Never Have To Choose.
Mother
Children
Choices
When Someone Is In Your Heart, They're Never Truly Gone. They Can Come Back To You, Even At Unlikely Times.
Love
Heart
Gone
As Mankind Grew Obsessed With Its Hours, The Sorrow Of Lost Time Became A Permanent Hole In The Human Heart. People Fretted Over Missed Chances, Over Inefficient Days; They Worried Constantly About How Long They Would Live, Because Counting Life’s Moments Had Led, Inevitably, To Counting Them Down. Soon, In Every Nation And In Every Language, Time Became The Most Precious Commodity.
Heart
Long
People
It Is Never Too Late Or Too Soon. It Is When It Is Supposed To Be.
Beautiful Life
Too Late
Supposed To Be
People Often Belittle The Place Where They Were Born.
People
Born
Belittle
To Know You're Going To Die, And To Be Prepared For It At Any Time. That's Better. That Way You Can Actually Be More Involved In Your Life While You're Living.
Way
Be Prepared
Involved
The Problem, Mitch, Is That We Don't Believe We Are As Much Alike As We Are. Whites And Blacks, Catholics And Protestants, Men And Women. If We Saw Each Other As More Alike, We Might Be Very Eager To Join In One Big Human Family In This World, And To Care About That Family The Way We Care About Our Own. But Believe Me, When You Are Dying, You See It Is True. We All Have The Same Beginning - Birth - And We All Have The Same End - Death. So How Different Can We Be? Invest In The Human Family. Invest In People. Build A Little Community Of Those You Love And Who Love You. Morrie Schwartz
Love
Believe
Men
In Heaven, There Is No Judgment, But Rather An Opportunity To Examine Our Lives-who We Touched, The Choices We Made, And The Consequences Of Those Choices.
Opportunity
Choices
Heaven
It Was Sad, The Imbalance Of It All. Why Do Kids Assume So Much From One Parent And Hold The Other To A Lower, Looser Standard?
Kids
Parent
Imbalance
We’re So Wrapped Up With Egotistical Things, Career, Family, Having Enough Money, Meeting The Mortgage, Getting A New Car, Fixing The Radiator When It Breaks—we’re Involved In Trillions Of Little Acts Just To Keep Going. So We Don’t Get Into The Habit Of Standing Back And Looking At Our Lives And Saying, Is This All? Is This All I Want? Is Something Missing?
Careers
Missing
Want
When Hope Is Gone, Time Is Punishment.
Punishment
Gone
Gone Time
My Father Moved Through Theys Of We, Singing Each New Leaf Out Of Each Tree, (and Every Child Was Sure That Spring Danced When She Heard My Father Sing).
Children
Spring
Father
But My Father, A Thief In Many Ways, Had Robbed Me Of My Concentration.
Father
Thieves
Way
There Is No Point In Keeping Vengeance Or Stubbornness. These Things" -he Sighed- "these Things I So Regret In My Life. Pride. Vanity. Why Do We Do The Things We Do? Morrie Schwartz
Regret
Pride
Vanity
Instead, He Would Make Death His Final Project, The Center Point Of His Days. Since Everyone Was Going To Die, He Could Be Of Great Value, Right? He Could Be Research. A Human Textbook. Study Me In My Slow And Patient Demise. Watch What Happens To Me. Learn With Me.
Watches
Finals
Textbooks
Strangers Are Family You Haven't Recognize Yet
Stranger
Havens
There's A Big Confusion In This Country Over What We Want Versus What We Need," Morrie Said. "you Need Food, You Want A Chocolate Sundae. You Have To Be Honest With Yourself. You Don't Need The Latest Sports Car, You Don't Need The Biggest House. The Truth Is, You Don't Get Satisfaction From Those Things. You Know What Really Gives You Satisfaction?...offering Others What You Have To Give...i Don't Mean Money, Mitch. I Mean Your Time. Your Concern. Your Storytelling. It's Not So Hard.
Sports
Country
Mean
If You Could Pack For Heaven, This Was How You'd Do It, Touching Everything, Taking Nothing.
Heaven
Touching
Packs
People Are Only Mean When They're Threatened, And That's What Our Culture Does. That's What Our Economy Does.
Mean
People
Doe
Accept What You Are Able To Do And What You Are Not Able To Do. Accept The Past As Past, Without Denying It Or Discarding It. Learn To Forgive Yourself And To Forgive Others. Don't Assume That It's Too Late To Get Involved.
Past
Forgiving
Too Late
Please, Please, Please, Please, Please...,", Squeezing His Eyes Shut Because It Somehow Made The Words More Pure.
Eye
Made
Squeezing
A Man Who Can Take Anything Will Find Most Things Unsatisfying. And A Man Without Memories Is Just A Shell.
Memories
Men
Shells
Never Tell A Child That Something It's Too Hard
Children
Hard
Ends Are For Yesterday, Not Tomorrows.
Yesterday
Tomorrow
Ends
Mothers Support Certain Illusions About Their Children, And One Of My Illusions Was That I Liked Who I Was, Because She Did. When She Passed Away, So Did That Idea.
Mother
Children
Ideas
Fairness, Does Not Govern Life And Death. If It Did, No Good Person Would Ever Die Young. ~ The Blue Man
Men
Blue
Life And Death
Everyone Knows They Re Going To Die,' He Said Again, 'but Nobody Believes It. If We Did, We Would Do Things Differently.
Believe
Said
Knows
The Way You Get Meaning Into Your Life Is To Devote Yourself To Loving Others.
Generosity
Charity
Giving Help
The Years After Graduation Hardened Me Into Someone Quite Different From The Strutting Graduate Who Left Campus That Day Headed For New York City, Ready To Offer The World His Talent. The World, I Discovered. Was Not All That Interested.
New York
Years
Cities
It’s Funny. I Met A Man Once Who Did A Lot Of Mountain Climbing. I Asked Him Which Was Harder, Ascending Or Descending? He Said Without A Doubt Descending, Because Ascending You Were So Focused On Reaching The Top, You Avoided Mistakes. The Backside Of A Mountain Is A Fight Against Human Nature,” He Said. “you Have To Care As Much About Yourself On The Way Down As You Did On The Way Up.
Mistake
Fighting
Men
Nobody's Favorite Movie Is Some Dark, Dysfunctional Slasher Story. Everybody's Favorite Song Is A Sentimental Song. So Why All Of A Sudden Is It Bad To Be Sentimental In Books?
Song
Book
Dark
Sometimes, Kids Want You To Hurt The Way They Hurt.
Hurt
Kids
Parenting
We Need To Forgive Ourselves. For All The Things We Didn't Do. All The Things We Should Have Done. You Can't Get Stuck On The Regrets Of What Should Have Happened.
Regret
Should Have
Forgiving
I Worked Because I Could Control It.
You Have To Work At Creating Your Own Culture.
Creating
Culture
We Don't See What We Could Be. We Should Be Looking At Our Potential, Stretching Ourselves Into Everything We Can Become.
Achievement
Should
Stretching
Before You Measure The Years, You Measure The Days.
Years
You Know What That Reflects? Unsatisfied Lives. Unfulfilled Lives. Lives That Haven't Found Meaning . Because If You've Found Meaning In Your Life, You Don't Want To Go Back. You Want To Go Forward. You Want To See More, Do More. You Can't Wait Until Sixty-five.
Live Life
Waiting
Want
There Is A Time For Hello And A Time For Good-bye. It's Why The Act Of Burying Thing Seems Natural, But The Act Of Digging Them Up Does Not.
Bye
Doe
Digging
No One Gets Left Behind, Remember?
Remember
Left Behind
Behinds
We All Have Same Beginning (birth), And We Will Have Same Ending (death). So How Different Can We Be?
Different
Birth
My Thoughts Are Not Your Thoughts, Neither Are Your Ways My Ways" From The Book Of Isaiah
Bible
Book
Way
Faith Is About Doing. You Are How You Act, Not Just How You Believe.
Faith
Christian
Believe
I Don't Know About Heaven Or Hell, But I Do Know That We Are Visited All The Time By The Spirits Of Those Who Affected Us In Life.
Heaven
Spirit
Hell
All Parents Damage Their Children. It Cannot Be Helped. Youth, Like Pristine Glass, Absorbs The Prints Of Its Handlers. Some Parents Smudge, Others Crack, A Few Shatter Childhoods Completely Into Jagged Little Pieces, Beyond Repair.
Family
Children
Believe
When You Are An Outcast, Even A Tossed Stone Can Be Cherished.
Stones
Outcast
Sometimes, When You Are Not Getting The Love You Want, Giving Makes You Think You Will.
Love You
Thinking
Giving
You're Not Going To Fix Things By Helping 65-year-olds Or 75-year-olds For Any Long Run.
Running
Years
Long
When He Smiles It's As If You'd Just Told Him The First Joke On Earth.
Earth
Firsts
Jokes
Look, No Matter Where You Live, The Biggest Defect We Human Beings Have Is Our Shortsightedness. We Don’t See What We Could Be. We Should Be Looking At Our Potential, Stretching Ourselves Into Everything We Can Become. But If You’re Surrounded By People Who Say ‘i Want Mine Now,’ You End Up With A Few People With Everything And A Military To Keep The Poor Ones From Rising Up And Stealing It.
Military
Rising Up
People
But Our Eyes Are Different, What You See Ain't What I See.
Eye
Different
This Is Part Of What A Family Is About, Not Just Love. It's Knowing That Your Family Will Be There Watching Out For You. Nothing Else Will Give You That. Not Money. Not Fame. Not Work.
Family
Knowing
Giving
There Was Always A Quest For More Minutes, More Hours, Faster Progress To Accomplish More In Each Day. The Simple Joy Of Living Between Summers Was Gone.
Summer
Simple
Joy
When We Are Most Alone Is When We Embrace Another's Loneliness.
Loneliness
Embrace
A Child Embarrassed By His Mother,” She Said, “is Just A Child Who Hasn’t Lived Long Enough.
Mother
Children
Long
Sharing Tales Of Those We've Lost Is How We Keep From Really Losing Them.
Inspiring
Memories
Losing
Tell Me About Your Family," I Said. And So She Did. I Listened Intently As My Mother Went Through Each Branch Of The Tree. Years Later, After The Funeral, Maria Had Asked Me Questions About The Family - Who Was Related To Whom - And I Struggled. I Couldn't Remember. A Big Chunk Of Our History Had Been Buried With My Mother. You Should Never Let Your Past Disappear That Way.
Mother
Past
Years
What Is It About Childhood That Never Lets You Go, Even When You're So Wrecked It's Hard To Believe You Ever Were A Child?
Children
Believe
Childhood
Getting Old We Can Deal With. Being Old Is The Problem
Problem
Deals
Being Old
Belief, Hard Work, Love–you Have Those Things, You Can Do Anything.
Love You
Hard Work
Belief
You Have To Find What’s Good And True And Beautiful In Your Life As It Is Now. Looking Back Makes You Competitive. And, Age Is Not A Competitive Issue.
Beautiful
Issues
Age
I Thought About All The People I Knew Who Spent Many Of Their Waking Hours Feeling Sorry For Themselves. How Useful It Would Be To Put A Daily Limit On Self-pity. Just A Few Tearful Minutes, Then On With The Day.
Sorry
Self
People
Knowing Heaven Is What Heals Us On Earth.
Knowing
Heaven
Earth
Have You Ever Lost Someone You Love And Wanted One More Conversation, One More Chance To Make Up For The Time When You Thought They Would Be Here Forever? If So, Then You Know You Can Go Your Whole Life Collecting Days, And None Will Outweigh The One You Wish You Had Back.
Sad
Losing A Loved One
Loss
I'm In Love With Hope.
Mankind Is Connected In Ways It Does Not Understand - Even In Dreams.
Dream
Doe
Way
You Are Not Your Past.
Past
Your Past
If God Wants It, It Will Happen.
Want
Happens
Ifs
The Words People Do Not Speak Are Louder Than The Ones They Do.
People
Speak
Taffy. He Thinks About Taffy. He Thinks It Would Take His Teeth Out Now, But He Would Eat It Anyhow, If It Meant Eating It With Her.
Thinking
Teeth
Taffy
Personally, I Always Wondered About Authors And Celebrities Who Loudly Declared There Was No God. It Was Usually When They Were Healthy And Popular And Being Listened To By Crowds. What Happens, I Wondered, In The Quiet Moments Before Death? By Then, They Have Lost The Stage, The World Has Moved On. If Suddenly, In Their Last Gasping Moments, Through Fear, A Vision, A Late Enlightenment, They Change Their Minds About God, Who Would Know?
Quiet Moments
Healthy
Mind
We Do Not Realize The Sound The World Makes -- Unless, Of Course, It Comes To A Stop. Then, When It Starts, It Sounds Like An Orchestra.
Sound
World
Orchestra
If You Hold Back On The Emotions--if You Don't Allow Yourself To Go All The Way Through Them--you Can Never Get To Being Detached, You're Too Busy Being Afraid.
Way
Emotion
Busy
When A Lost Loved One Appears Before You, It's Your Brain That Fights It, Not Your Heart.
Heart
Fighting
Brain
But You Grab A Moment, Or You Let It Pass.
Moments
My Writing Habits Are Pretty Static. I Get Up Every Morning Between 6 And 7 Am, Grab A Cup Of Coffee, Say A Few Prayers, And Go Downstairs To My Office And Start Writing.
Morning
Prayer
Coffee
For Years I Wrote In My Basement. More Recently I Graduated To One Floor Above, An Office With All My Books And Music And - Ta Da! - A Window.
Book
Years
Office
This Is A Story About A Man Named Eddie And It Begins At The End, With Eddie Dying In The Sun.
Men
Dying
Stories
We All Know How To Be A Child.
Children
Know How
Knows
Had He Known His Death Was Imminent, He Might Have Gone Somewhere Else. Instead, He Did What We All Do. He Went About His Dull Routine As If All The Days In The World Were Still To Come. ~pg 4
Somewhere Else
Routine
Gone
He Was Near Tears, 'who Do I Blame?' He Kept Asking Me. 'there Is No God.i Can Only Blame Myself.'" The Reb's Face Tightened, As If In Pain. "that," He Said, Softly, "is A Terrible Self-indictment." Worse Than An Unanswered Prayer? "oh Yes. It Is Far More Comforting To Think God Listened And Said No, Than To Think That Nobody's Out There.
Prayer
Pain
Thinking
All I Was Afraid Of Is Saying Good-bye.
Bye
Good Bye
Saying Good Bye
Silence Was His Escape, But Silence Is Rarely A Refuge.
Silence
Refuge
Silence Is
I Feel Ashamed Now That I Tried To Take My Life. It Is Such A Precious Thing. I Had No One To Talk Me Out Of My Despair And That Was A Mistake. You Need To Keep People Close. You Need To Give Them Access To Your Heart.
Mistake
Heart
People
Sacrfice," The Captain Said. "you Made One. I Made One. We All Made Them. But You Were Angry Over Yours. You Kept Thinking About What You Lost. You Didn't Get It. Sacrifice Is A Part Of Life. It's Supposed To Be. It's Not Something To Regret. It's Something To Aspire To.
Regret
Sacrifice
Thinking
All Who Are Born Are Always Dying.
Dying
Born
He Almost Told Her Everything Right Then, That Very Moment. But You Grab A Moment, Or You Let It Pass. He Let It Pass.
Moments
Take One Story, Viewed From Two Different Angles. It Is The Same Day, The Same Moment, But One Angle Ends Happily... And The Other Ends Badly.
Two
Different
Stories
There Are Many Things In My Life That I Wish I Could Take Back. Many Moments I Would Recast.
Wish
Moments
Invest In The Human Family. Invest In People. Build A Little Community Of Those You Love And Who Love You.
Love You
People
Community
Accept The Past As Past, Without Denying It Or Discarding It.
Past
Forgive Yourself
Accepting
And I Suppose Tapes Are A Desperate Attempt To Steal Something From Death's Suitcase.
Tape
Suitcases
Stealing
I'm Being Made Aware Of My Mortality All The Time.
Mortality
Made
Tension Of Opposites.
Opposites
Tension
No Matter Where You Live, The Biggest Defect We Human Beings Have Is Our Shortsightedness. We Don't See What We Could Be.
Where You Live
Matter
Defects
We Move Through Places Every Day That Would Never Have Been If Not For Those Who Came Before Us. Our Workplaces, Where We Spend So Much Time--we Often Think They Began With Our Arrival. That's Not True.
Moving
Thinking
Workplace
As Children Grow, They Gravitate To Their Fates.
Children
Fate
Grows
It's The Same Thing With Faith, By The Way." We Don't Want To Get Stuck Having To Go To Services All The Time, Or Having To Follow All The Rules. We Don't Want To Commit To God. We'll Take Him When We Need Him, Or When Things Are Going Good. But Real Commitment? That Requires Staying Power‎-‎-‎-in Faith And In Marriage." And If You Don't Commit? I Asked. "your Choice. But You Miss What's On The Other Side." What's On The Other Side? "ah." He Smiled, "a Happiness You Cannot Find Alone.
Real
Commitment
Choices
But A Desperate Heart Will Seduce The Mind.
Heart
Mind
Desperate
Parents Rarely Let Go Of Their Children, So Children Let Go Of Them. They Move On. They Move Away. The Moments That Used To Define Them - A Mother's Approval, A Father's Nod - Are Covered By Moments Of Their Own Accomplishments. It Is Not Until Much Later, As The Skin Sags And The Heart Weakens, That Children Understand; Their Stories, And All Their Accomplishments, Sit Atop The Stories Of Their Mothers And Fathers, Stones Upon Stones, Beneath The Waters Of Their Lives.
Letting Go
Mother
Children
There Is No Fair In Life And Death. If It Were, No Good Men Would Die Young.
Men
Life And Death
Good Man
Sacrifice Is A Part Of Life. It’s Supposed To Be. It’s Not Something To Regret. It’s Something To Aspire To. Little Sacrifices. Big Sacrifices. A Mother Works So Her Son Can Go To School. A Daughter Moves Home To Take Care Of Her Sick Father.
Daughter
Mother
Regret
...if You're Trying To Show Off For People At The Top, Forget It. They Will Look Down On 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.
Heart
Tuesdays With Morrie
People
We're Tuesday People.
People
Tuesday
Don't Cling To Things, Because Everything Is Impermanent... But Detachment Doesn't Mean You Don't Let The Experience Penetrate You. On The Contrary, You Let It Penetrate You Fully. That's How You Are Able To Leave It...you're Afraid Of The Pain, You're Afraid Of The Grief... But By Throwing Yourself Into These Emotions, By Allowing Yourself To Dive In, All The Way, Over Your Head Even, You Experience Them Fully And Completely.you Know What Pain Is. You Know What Love Is. "all Right. I Have Experienced That Emotion. I Recognize That Emotion. Now I Need To Detach From That Emotion For A Moment.
Pain
Grief
Mean
Love Is The Only Rational Act.
Happiness
Optimistic
Love Is
I Think We've Created A System Here Where Only The Lifelong Politicians, Who Are Used To This Kind Of Life In The Spotlight And Don't Care, Or People Who Have Egos Along The Lines Of Donald Trump - Who Just Don't Care What People Say About Them - They're The Only People Who Are Ever Going To Run Because Nobody Wants Their Life Dissected As Meanly And As Randomly As Our Media Has Come To Do With Anybody Who Runs For Office.
Running
Thinking
Media
I Don't Use Any Fance Quill Pens Or Pads, Because I Can't Read My Own Handwriting. I Just Use Whatever Computer Is Laying Around, And Start Writing.
Writing
Use
Pads
The Manager Once Called Me The 'best Freak' In His Stable, And, Sad As It Sounds, I Took Pride In That. When You Are An Outcast, Even A Tossed Stone Can Be Cherished.
Pride
Sound
Stones
Holding Anger Is A Poison. It Eats You From The Inside. We Think That Hating Is A Weapon That Attacks The Person Who Harmed Us. But Hatred Is A Curved Blade. And The Harm We Do, We Do To Ourselves. Forgive, Edward. Forgive...no One Is Born With Anger. And When We Die, The Soul Is Freed Of It. But Now, Here, In Order To Move On, You Must Understand Why You Felt What You Did, And Why You No Longer Need To Feel It.' She Touched His Hand. 'you Need To Forgive Your Father.' ~pgs 141-142
Father
Hate
Moving
I Believe He Died This Way On Purpose. I Believe He Wanted No Chilling Moments, No One To Witness His Last Breath And Be Haunted By It, The Way He Had Been Haunted By His Mother's Death-notice Telegram Or By His Father's Corpse In The City Morgue.
Mother
Father
Believe
Accept What You Are Able To Do And What You Are Not Able To Do.
Able
Forgive Yourself
Accepting
I Know I Cannot Undo This. None Of Us Can Undo What We’ve Done, Or Relive A Life Already Recorded.
Done
Knows
Accept Who You Are; And Revel In It.
Confidence
Wisdom
Self Love
By Now, The Morning Sun Was Just Over The Horizon And It Came At Me Like A Sidearm Pitch Between The Houses Of My Old Neighborhood. I Shielded My Eyes. This Being Early October, There Were Already Piles Of Leaves Pushed Against The Curb—more Leaves Than I Remembered From My Autumns Here—andless Open Space In The Sky. I Think What You Notice Most When You Haven’t Been Home In A While Is How Much The Trees Have Grown Around Your Memories.
Morning
Memories
Eye
The Truth Is, Once You Learn How To Die, You Learn How To Live.
Death
Truth Is
You Live You Learn
Everyone Keeps Talking About Fixing And Returning America - Making America Great. But Yet, Nobody Ever Seems To Focus On The Fact That You're Not Going To Make Any Country Great If You Don't Address Its Children.
Country
Children
Talking
Things Change When You're Not In Danger Anymore.
Things Change
Danger
Because When The World Quiets To The Sound Of Your Own Breathing, We All Want The Same Things: Comfort, Love, And A Peaceful Heart.
Beautiful
Heart
Breathing
And In That Line Now Was A Whiskered Old Man, With A Linen Cap And A Crooked Nose, Who Waited In A Place Called The Stardust Band Shell To Share His Part Of The Secret Of Heaven: That Each Affects The Other And The Other Affects The Next, And The World Is Full Of Stories, But The Stories Are All One.
Men
Heaven
Secret
I Believe The Biggest Themes Of Life Are Put Into The Best Focus When Held Up Against The Very Sharp Light Of Mortality.
Believe
Light
Focus
Whenever You Have Two Characters In A Book, Whether It's A Novel Or Nonfiction, You Run The Risk That The Reader Is Going To Like One More Than The Other. They're Going To Read One Chapter And Say, 'i Can't Wait To Get Back To The Other Guy.
Running
Book
Character
I Am In Love With Hope.
I Like Myself Better When I'm With You.
Life
Standing Tall
He Makes Me Feel
In Business People Negotiate To Win. They Negotiate To Get What They Want. Love Is Different. Love Is When You Are As Concerned About Someone Else's Situation As You Are About Your Own.
Winning
Love Is
People
I Think We Hear A Lot Of Talk About College, And We Don't Hear About Early Education.
College
Thinking
Early Education
Status Will Get You Nowhere. Only An Open Heart Will Allow You To Float Equally Between Everyone.
Heart
Open Heart
Floats
Most Of Us All Walk Around As If We're Sleepwalking. We Really Don't Experience The World Fully, Because We're Half-asleep, Doing Things We Automatically Think We Have To Do.
Thinking
Half
World
You May Not Have Known The Reason At The Time, And That Is What Heaven Is For. For Understanding Your Life On Earth.
Heaven
Understanding
Earth
I Lived," Dor Said, "but I Was Not Alive.
Alive
Said
Death Is The End Of A Lifetime, Not The End Of A Relationship.
Relationships Ending
Lifetime
Ends
As Long As We Can Love Each Other, And Remember The Feeling Of Love We Had, We Can Die Without Ever Really Going Away.
Long
Feelings
Going Away
How Do People Choose Their Final Words? Do They Realize Their Gravity? Are They Fated To Be Wise?
Wise
People
Finals
Now You Know How Badly Someone Wanted You, Charley. Children Forget That Sometimes. They Think Of Themselves As A Burden Instead Of A Wish Granted.
Children
Thinking
Wish
Strangers Are Just Family You Have Yet To Come To Know.
Family
Stranger
Knows
And If You Don´t Commit? I Asked. Your Choice. But You Miss What´s On The Other Side. What´s On The Other Side? "ah" He Smiled. "a Happiness You Cannot Find Alone
Choices
Missing
Sides
I Would Certainly Make The Attendance In College Paid For, At Least At A Community College Level Or A State - You Know, A Sponsored University Level So That If You Wanted To Go To College And If You Had The Grades - You Might Not Go To Harvard - But You Went To College.
College
Community
Attendance
Have You Ever Really Had A Teacher? One Who Saw You As A Raw But Precious Thing, A Jewel That, With Wisdom, Could Be Polished To A Proud Shine?
Teacher
Tuesdays With Morrie
Jewels
Miracles Happen Quietly Every Day - In An Operating Room, On A Stormy Sea, In The Sudden Appearance Of A Road Side Stranger. They Are Rarely Tallied. No One Keeps Score.
Sea
Miracle
Rooms
Be Compassionate," Morrie Whispered. And Take Responsibility For Each Other. If We Only Learned Those Lessons, This World Would Be So Much Better A Place." He Took A Breath, Then Added His Mantra: "love Each Other Or Die.
Responsibility
Would Be
World
Being Here In Detroit, Our Public Education In This City Is - It's Shocking. And The Oversight Of It And The Oversight Of The Teachers And The Funding Is Nonexistent, And The Priority That's Put On It Is So Low.
Teacher
Cities
Priorities
I Had A Very High-grade Publisher Tell Me I Was Incapable Of Writing A Memoir.
Writing
Grades
Memoir
All These People That You Meet Or I Meet, There's Not A Prayer In Hell That They're Ever Going To Run For Office Or Major Office Because If They're That Smart, They're Also Smart Enough To Know They Don't Want To Take Everything That They've Built Up And Have It Torn Apart By A Sensationalized Media That's So Hungry For Any Kind Of Salacious Detail That They'll Make That The Emphasis Of The Person's Life. And Then All Of Sudden, 50, 60 Years Of Hard Work And Accomplishment Go Out The Window.
Running
Prayer
Smart
What If I Lose You?" "you Can't Lose Your Mother, Charley.
Mother
What If
Ifs
I Seem To Have Very Few Casual Readers, Only Passionate And Appreciative Ones.
Passionate
Appreciative
Casual
I Believe That You Live On Inside The Hearts And Minds Of Everyone You've Touched While You Were Here On Earth.
Believe
Heart
Mind
Man Wants To Own His Existence. But No One Owns Time.
Men
Want
Existence
I Was A Workaholic. I Never Stopped. I Lived In Fifth Gear. I Bought Cars. I Invested In Stocks. I Made More Money Than I Had Ever Imagined.
Car
Gears
Workaholic
Heaven Is Always And Forever Around Us And No Soul Remembered Is Ever Really Gone.
Forever
Heaven
Soul
He Cried That Night For All That He Had Lost, But He Would Say It Taught Him A Valuable Lesson: That Holding On To Things "will Only Break Your Heart.
Heart
Night
Lessons
When He Went Blundering Back To God, His Songs Half Written, His Work Half Done, Who Knows What Paths His Bruised Feet Trod, What Hills Of Peace Or Pain He Won? I Hope God Smiled And Took His Hand, And Said, "poor Truant, Passionate Fool! Life’s Book Is Hard To Understand: Why Couldst Thou Not Remain At School?" A Poem By Charles Hanson Towne
Song
Pain
Book
She Felt Worthless And Hollow. There Was No Hope Of Fixing This. And When Hope Is Gone, Time Is Punishment.
Punishment
Gone
Fixing
I Give Myself A Good Cry If I Need It, But Then I Concentrate On All Good Things Still In My Life.
Giving
Needs
Cry
The Most Important Elements Of Faith [are] Believing In Something Bigger Than Yourself, Taking Care Of Those Less Fortunate Than You.
Believe
Important
Elements
I Took My Orders, Too. But If I Couldn't Keep You Alive, I Thought I Could At Least Keep You Together. In The Middle Of A Big War, You Go Looking For A Small Idea To Believe In. When You Find One, You Hold It The Way A Soldier Holds His Crucifix When He's Praying In A Foxhole.
War
Believe
Order
There Is No Experience Like Having Children.’ That’s All. There Is No Substitute For It. You Cannot Do It With A Friend. You Cannot Do It With A Lover. If You Want The Experience Of Having Complete Responsibility For Another Human Being, And To Learn How To Love And Bond In The Deepest Way, Then You Should Have Children.
Children
Responsibility
Should Have
When Your Time Came, It Came, And That Was That. You Might Say Something Smart On Your Way Out, But You Might Just As Easily Say Something Stupid.
Smart
Stupid
Might
In The Beginning Of Life, When We Are Infants, We Need Others To Survive, Right? And At The End Of Life, When You Get Like Me, You Need Others To Survive, Right?’ His Voice Dropped To A Whisper. ‘but Here’s The Secret: In Between, We Need Others As Well.
Voice
Secret
Needs
I Also Believe That Parents, If They Love You, Will Hold You Up Safely, Above Their Swirling Waters, And Sometimes That Means You'll Never Know What They Endured, And You May Treat Them Unkindly, In A Way You Otherwise Wouldn't.
Believe
Love You
Mean
The Backside Of A Mountain Is A Fight Against Human Nature. You Have To Care As Much About Yourself On The Way Down As You Did On The Way Up.
Fighting
Mountain
Care
This Is A Story About A Family And, As There Is A Ghost Involved, You Might Cal It A Ghost Story. But Every Family Is A Ghost Story. The Dead Sit At Out Tables Long After They Have Gone.
Ghost Stories
Long
Gone
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