10 lessons for life

from the five people you meet in Heaven

The five people you meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom is filled with food for thought. Every person Eddie meets in Heaven has a lesson to teach him. He knows a few personally while others have been strangers to him during his life on Earth. Yet, these are the lives he affected or vice versa and now they help him make sense of his yesterdays. Eddie’s insecurities are the outcome of unanswered questions. Now, as his questions are answered, his mind and soul are freed of all insecurities.

Here’s what we can learn from Eddie’s life and the five people he met in Heaven:

1. We do not act randomly. Our actions affect not just our lives but the lives of other’s as well.
2. Every person sees a situation differently and has his own explanation for his actions.
3. If you lose or sacrifice something precious you have just passed it on to someone else.
4. Holding anger hurts us more than we intend to hurt the person we are angry with.
5. If you are troubled by someone’s actions or not able to forgive someone, first make peace with yourself.
6. Even people who have come before our time affect our lives. The tree in your college campus was planted by someone else, yet now you get to enjoy in it’s shade.
7. We fret over losing people all the time. Death takes some apart while some choose to have a life apart. Either way, they just move from physical presence to our memory. You can still nurture them all your life.
8. Instead of being loyal to Religion or Government to death, it’s better we be loyal to each other.
9. To move on in life, understand the reason why you felt a certain way and that you no longer need to feel the same.
10. World isn’t a collection of stories, it’s a single story.

The five people you meet in Heaven is a very engaging book, filled with a lot of lessons. Read this book once, to make sense of your life.