anticipating chooseday, thinking of tuesdays with morrie

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.

What if today were my last day on earth? … 
Is this all? 
Is this all I want? 
Is something missing?...
I knew what he was saying. 
We all need teachers in our lives.

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 our life while you’re living. How can you ever be prepared to die?... Do what the Buddhists do. Every day, have a little bird on your shoulder that asks, ‘Is today the day? Am I ready? Am I doing all I need to do? Am I being the person I want to be?’…once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.

… 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.…Take any emotion – love for a woman, or grief for a loved one…. 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. …
I have experienced that emotion. 
I recognize that emotion. 
Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.
Same for loneliness: you let go, let the tears flow, feel it completely – but eventually be able to say, All right, that was my moment with loneliness. I’m not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I’m going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I’m going to experience them as well.

...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. That doesn’t help you when you get to where I am. I always wished I had done more with my work; I wished I had written more books. I used to beat myself up over it. Now I see that never did any good.  
Make peace. 
You need to make peace with yourself 
and everyone around you. 

[these are my favorite quotes from the book :)]