I am reading Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie, enjoying the dying professor’s insight and wit and the author’s simple and compelling delivery.  I read a few pages each day, savoring their lessons and charm.  Today’s excerpt holds a lesson for me and perhaps you as well.  In this passage sportswriter Albom recounts an experience while covering Wimbledon.

“On one particularly crazy day, a crush of reporters had tried to chase down Andre Agassi and his famous girlfriend, Brooke Shields, and I had gotten knocked over by a British photographer who barely muttered “Sorry” before sweeping past, his huge metal lenses strapped around his neck.  I thought of something else Morrie had told me:

So many people walk around with a meaningless life.  They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important.  This is because they’re chasing the wrong things.  The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.  I knew he was right.”

My task today and everyday is to wake up and make sure I’m chasing the right things.