WiSdOm oF MoRRiE (from "Tuesdays With Morrie")

• ON TRUSTING OTHERS: "Sometimes, you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if ever you are 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."

• ON WHAT MAKES US EQUAL: "Maybe death is the great equalizer , the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another."

• ON HOPE/LIFE/OR DEATH: "Don't let go too soon, but don't hang on too long."

• ON LIFE: "Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted... a tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubberband and most of us live somewhere in the midddle."

• ON WHAT MATTERS: "Everyone is in 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 job. They find those things empty, too, and they keep running. Once you start running, it's hard to slow yourself down."

• ON HAVING AND RAISING CHILDREN: "There is no experience like having children. That's all. There is no substitute for it. You cannot (find the experience) with a friend. You cannot (find the experience) with a lover. If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children."

• ON SOCIAL STATUS: "...if you try 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 the 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."

• ON LIFE'S PURPOSE: "So many people walk with meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. 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."

• ON EMOTIONS: ... "It 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. 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. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that LOVING entails. 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. You know what grief is. And only then you can say, "All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach myself from that emotion for a moment."

• ON WHAT MATTERS: "The average person is so fogged up by all of this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore. Wherever I went in my life, I met people wanting to gobble up something new. Gobble up a new car. Gobble up the latest toy. And they want to tell you about it. 'Guess what I got? Guess what I got?' Do you know how I interpreted that? These people were so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes... They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of a hug back. But it never works."