Blog 14

I held up the newspaper right in front of Morrie's eyes. It read:
 'I don't want my tombstone to read "I never owned a network."

The quote was from the billionaire media founder of television network CNN, Ted Turner. Who would
ever say 'I never want my tombstone to read, I never owned a network?' Morrie and I agreed that our culture had become obsessed with money and materialistic things.
"It's all part of the same problem, Mitch. We put our values in the wrong things," he told me.
 He looked out the window at the hibiscus plant on the window sill. "We've got a form of brainwashing
going on in our country. Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. That's what we do in this country. We believe that owning things is good. More property is good. More money is good. More is good, more is good. The average person is so fogged up on all this, he has
no perspective on what's really important anymore."
 I was listening to Morrie like a little kid was to his parent who was reading him an intriguing story. Morrie had that gift. When he was talking, everyone would want to listen because he had so
much knowledge. So much knowledge of things we never thought about half the time.
 Morrie told me how 'money is not a substitute for tenderness, and power is not a substitute for tenderness.' I look around Morrie's study. I see stacks of books on the shelves and papers piled like a mountain on his desk. Not much had changed since the first day I came. And then I started thinking. Why are people so caught up in things that don't really matter? Like phones, the latest iPad or the coolest car that they're always hearing about. In Morrie's case, he was dying, but he was enjoying every day of his life as if it was his last day on Earth. He had never cared about electronics or sports cars or anything that all of us students thought were the most important things.
  'The truth is, you don't get satisfaction from those things. You know what really gives you satisfaction?"
What? I asked him.
 "Offering others what you have to give. Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
You notice," he added, smiling widely, "there's nothing in there about a salary."