Journal #3 Acceptance

1.) Acceptance. The epitome of self-awareness or strength, is what i believe it to be. To demonstrate acceptance may involve making sacrifices, the sacrifices usually being giving up on what you have fought for. Certain people are naive and do not have the mental power to accept certain things. But others, like Morrie, are able to prove how strong they are by simply accepting that they are wrong or, in Morrie's case, accepting what misfortune has occurred in his life.

2.) From the very beginning of Tuesdays with Morrie, it is discovered that Morrie has ALS and that he is a dying man. He understands that he is going to die, and does not hesitate to say it. He is even open to interviews about his disease. Morrie sometimes takes it as far as to describe the exact way he is going to die. Morrie is able to accept what his life has become, and can help give advice to people who are not this unfortunate. Also proving his acceptance is his quote; "Do not stop your lives. Otherwise this disease will have ruined three of us instead of one." This shows Morrie making a sacrifice by not seeing his sons, and spending most of his time alone. He accepts the fact that he is the only one who needs to be affected by this disease. He accepts the truth about how he must spend his dying days without seeing his family.

3.) Throughout this book, there are many topics which may be looked at as acceptance. It was therefore challenging to find an example which represented my opinion about acceptance perfectly. Morrie overcoming and furthermore accepting ALS as who he was, was a topic which was very compatible with my definition of acceptance. I agree with Morrie's decision for not seeing his family before he dies, only because this was very generous of him to do so. He knew that his family seeing him like he was would only hurt them more, and he did not want this to happen.

4.) If you were struck with ALS, do you feel you would be as accepting towards it as Morrie was?
No. I believe that i would only whine about what was happening. I would also love for my family to be with me before I had died. Although this may sound very selfish, I would pretty much be on my death bed and this would be my last wish. I feel that i should be excused from the guilt of being selfish during such a time. Along with this, i would have an extremely hard time actually accepting the truth about my disease, and i would pretend that is actually was not happening.