The Book That Changed My View

by Trixia Tan

The importance of words to existing is changing our individual points of view in life, transforming us and opening ourselves to the reality of the different perspectives in the world.

One book that changed my point of view in life and that inevitably changed me was The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. For those of you that have never read it, I truly recommend this book. It is a story retelling the life of a maintenance man in a fashion wherein his heroic death was the first narration, following that of the five people whose lives he inevitably crossed with or changed.

In this novel, we can truly see that life is not just as we see it.  It is not just like how we think that we are alone, and that our lives aren’t intertwined with each other. The author explicitly illustrated how Eddie’s life was intertwined with the child he saved, but then, with the Blue Man, the first person Eddie met, we can see that through small actions in our lives, we affect people and we affect our environment, no matter what. We are part of the community and in a way; we have a responsibility to be aware of this.

The second person Eddie met was his former captain in the army. His captain saved him in the war, but it also changed him because his Captain shot him in the leg to prevent him from reaching through the shadow he saw in the fire that he set, giving him his lifelong injury and ending his dream of living outside the confines of Ruby Pier where he worked as a maintenance man almost all his life, making him a somewhat bitter and lonely old man. This lead me to think of the reality of a single choice existing as more than just a choice, but something that truly influences us and the people around us to action.

Next was the owner of the carnival, the namesake of the carnival, he worked at for so long. He wasn’t able to exist at the same time with Ruby; however, his life is inevitably changed through her life. Making the historical distinction or interconnection of out lives more prominent. Ascertaining the reality that we are all interconnected in this world, no matter how long the past has passed or how far the future will go. We presently exist and our existence creates many differences in others’ existence. In illustration, life is just like a pool, wherein when one jumps in, waves are made throughout the whole pool. Ripples of these waves reach the end of the pool, its intensity dwindles into something that might seem nothing, but is really something present.

The fourth person that Eddie met was his wife who taught him that love is not loss after death. This is a great affirmation that the things we value in life, the things that we portray can never be loss with just the loss of our body on earth. We are still part of the on-going world, this might not be through physical existence, but through the values that we leave, through the influences that we bring, or even through small choices we have. We can affirm that we have existed.

Lastly, Eddie met Tala, the girl that he wasn’t able to save in the fire. He was filled with guilt for so long, but then Tala made him see that there is a purpose for his life, that his life is not meaningless. Giving me a glimpse of the importance and the more-ness of our individual actions.

The world might seem vast, but it is through this vastness that we can also say that it is small. Have you ever seen a person and realized that you’ve met that person’s brother/sister or any other relative? This just gives you an insight of how small the world really is. How interconnected we really are.