Life's Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom

Excerpt from Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson. The book was the result of his visits with his former professor, Morrie Schwartz.
” Everyone knows they’re going to die,” he said again, “but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”
So we kid ourselves about death, I said.
“Yes. But there’s a better approach. 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.”
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?’ ”
Morrie borrowed freely from all religions. He was born Jewish, but became an agnostic when he was a teenager, partly because of all that had happened to him as a child. He enjoyed some of the philosophies of Buddhism and Christianity, and he still felt at home, culturally, in Judaism. He was a religious mutt, which made him even more open to the students he taught over the years. And the things he was saying in his final months on earth seemed to transcend all religious differences. Death has a way of doing that.
“The truth is, Mitch,” he said, “once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

Did you think much about death before you got sick, I asked.
“No.” Morrie smiled. “I was like everyone else. No one really believes they’re going to die.”
But everyone knows someone who has died, I said. Why is it so hard to think about dying?
“Because,” Morrie continued, “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.”
And facing death changes all that?
“Oh, yes. You strip away all that stuff and you focus on the essentials. When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently.” He sighed. “Learn how to die, and you learn how to live.”
Written by Mitch Albom (1958-)
American sportswriter, lyricist