Well, the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time–then you might not be as ambitious as you are.
Interpretation
Embracing mortality can lead to a shift in ambition and priorities.
In this quote, Morrie Schwartz suggests that recognizing and accepting the inevitability of death can profoundly change one's perspective on life and ambitions. When you truly listen to the 'bird on your shoulder'—a metaphor for your conscience or awareness of mortality—you may prioritize what truly matters rather than pursuing endless ambitions driven by societal expectations or fears.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about prioritizing personal values over societal pressures.
People are only mean when they're threatened… and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.
The best way to deal with that is to live in a fully conscious, compassionate, loving way. Don't wait until you're on your deathbed to recognize that this is the only way to live.
Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer more than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims....and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But - how can I put this? I'm almost......drawn to them.
Do the kind of things that come from the heart, When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overhelmed with what comes back
It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.
When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.
Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe. .. We should not say 'I am an Athenian' or 'I am a Roman' but 'I am a citizen of the Universe.
Let us take some event in the life of humanity. For instance, war. There is a war going on at the present moment. What does it signify? It signifies that several millions of sleeping people are trying to destroy several millions of other sleeping people. They would not do this, of course, if they were to wake up. Everything that takes place is owing to this sleep.
Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.
There is no subjection so perfect as that which keeps the appearance of freedom.
All neurotics seek the religious
Years, following years, steal something every day; At last they steal us from ourselves away.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.