Mitch Albom, in his novel “Tuesdays with Morrie,” explores one man’s answers to many of the questions commonly asked throughout the journey of life.

Morrie Schwartz, Albom’s college professor, made a larger impact on Albom’s life than he ever knew – until Albom showed up in his drive-way one day towards the end of Schwartz’s life. “The last class of my old professor’s life had only one student,” Albom writes. “I was the student.”

When Albom discovered that his favorite college professor and long-time friend possessed a terminal illness, he began meeting with him on Tuesdays in his home, where Schwartz spoke with him and shared some of the vital life-lessons he learned throughout his remarkable, but fleeting journey. Mitch Albom promised Schwartz that he would record his last words in order to preserve the memory of this extraordinary man. This book is the fulfillment of that promise.

Albom ardently captures the bitter and the sweet in this recollection of a dying man’s most poignant joys and greatest regrets. While reading this book, the reader is inevitably thrown into a serious reevaluation of his or her priorities, because it emphasizes the fact that life truly is fleeting; at any moment it could be gone.

This book gave me a new perspective on a number of things, such as old age. For example, when Albom asked his professor if he was ever afraid to grow old, Schwartz answered that he had never been afraid of it; rather, he embraced aging. Speaking of unhappy people who constantly wish they were young again, Schwartz remarked, “You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven’t found meaning. Because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward.” He explained that although he enjoyed being as young as Albom, he did not envy him. “How can I be envious of where you are – when I’ve been there myself?”

One part of the book that really impacted me was Schwartz telling Albom his most crucial life lesson. “The most important thing in life,” he whispered, “is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in…A wise man named Levine said it right. He said, ‘Love is the only rational act.’”

With moving quotes from the last days of Morrie Schwartz’s life and enlightening speculation from Mitch Albom, this book is a second chance for all of us to start truly appreciating each day before it ends. I would recommend “Tuesdays with Morrie” to anyone and everyone, because it redefines life in a way we all need to hear. This book has made me realize that life is not a race to finish as fast as we are able. Instead, it is a journey in which we are meant to experience joy, hard work, success, failure, pain, passion, relationships, heartache, true love, and someday – death. Simply stated, “Tuesdays with Morrie” is a story of, as its front cover displays, an old man, a young man, and life’s greatest lesson.