Morrie has a unique view of death. He has been diagnosed with Lou Garrick’s disease which is a neurological disease which slowly destroys motor neurons. The loss of respiratory function is most often the cause of death.  Morrie knows he is going to die one day. Morrie believes that once you learn how to die you learn how to live. Morrie believes that if you accept that you can die at any time that you might not be as ambitious as you are. Morrie also believes that people are more focused on materialistic things that do not satisfy us. Morrie is a very optimistic person who passes his personal experience onto Mitch his student.

When Morrie said “Once you learn how to die you learn how to live” he made a very good point. Often people do not start living life to its fullest until they know their days are limited. Morrie personally experienced this after he was diagnosed with his disease. Morrie regretted not traveling when he was younger. He told Mitch that he wished he could have travelled and seen more of the world before his disease limited his ability to move. Morrie learned just how important life is although it was far too late to change anything. Instead of complaining he flat out told Mitch to travel. He decided that passing on his own personal experience to Mitch was important. He did not want to see his favorite student to have the same regrets he did. Morrie was a teacher till he took his last breath. Unlike most people he cared more about others than himself.

Morrie said that “If you accept that you can die at any time then you might not be as ambitious as you are”. Accepting that you will die is not going to make your life very enjoyable. If you think that you can do at any second you are going to spend most of you time just waiting to die. You are not going to enjoy life. Instead you are going to be more focused on when or where you will die rather than enjoying the time you have left. Morrie is very wise in the fact that he has realized this way of thinking. He instead believes that you should live each day as if it is your last.

Morrie said that “We are too involved in materialistic things, and they often don’t satisfy us”. Morrie believes that we take the relationships we have and the universe around us for granted. Morrie has a very good point. People waste so much time on their cell phones, computers, listening to their ipods when they could be spending time with their families. Imagine all of the time that you waste daily on materialistic items. Think of all the time you could have been spending with your family. Morrie did not really practice what he preached however. Rather than spending more time with his family he decided to spend time with his past students. However he may have been doing this for other reasons such as not wanting to upset his family by seeing him in the state that he was in.

In conclusion Morrie was a very wise and unique person. He viewed death as a chance to teach his students to live life to its fullest. He saw his disease as an opportunity rather than a misfortune. He realized that if you accepted that you could die at any moment that you would do nothing about it and just wait for it to happen. He also realized how focused people were on materialistic items and how much valuable time is wasted with these materialistic items. Morrie is a very unique and wise individual who stayed positive and turned his misfortune into an opportunity.