Quote 16
"Part of the problem, Mitch, is that everyone is in such a hurry," Morrie said. "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 house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running." (19.57)
Sounds kind of like Mitch when he was young, doesn't it? Life becomes this mad race to accumulate things in the name of piling up happiness. The race gets more and more desperate, though, because people don't get happier and they don't have any time to stop and rethink their priorities.
Quote 17
"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?'" (13.9)
Morrie draws from Buddhism here, and the idea is to work on perfecting yourself so that when the time comes, we're ready to go. The people we're accountable to are ourselves.
Quote 18
"Mitch," he said, laughing along, "even I don't know what 'spiritual development' really means. But I do know we're deficient in some way. We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us." (13.40)
Morrie is admitting that spiritual stuff is a lot to figure out, even in his old age. But he does know that it's something that is the opposite of materialism. There's definitely something else out there that we need, because material things just don't cut it.