INTRODUCTION
The Alchemist by PAULO COELHO is one of the best-selling books in history. The premise of the book is “Follow Your Personal Legend.” The plot of the Alchemist revolves around chasing your dreams or life’s purposes which the author refers to as a personal legend.
SUMMARY
The author tells a tale about a young shepherd boy, Santiago, who leaves his herd of sheep searching for buried treasure in a faraway land. I will give a high-level telling of the story and insert some lessons from The Alchemist that I learned as we go along.
The story begins with Santiago bringing his sheep to an abandoned church in the countryside to sleep for the night. He is excited as he will visit a merchant who will buy some of his wool in a few days. However, he is even more excited to see the merchant’s daughter, whom he met a year earlier and has a crush on. Santiago fantasizes that the girl may be ‘the one. However, his fantasy is quickly derailed by recurring dreams where he is told to visit the Great Pyramids in Egypt, where he will find buried treasure.
Upon the advice of a gypsy lady and an interesting old man who claims to be the ‘King of Salem,’ he decides to sell his herd and sails to Morocco in pursuit of the hidden treasure from his dreams. The lesson here is not to worry about or let what others think of your dreams or life’s purpose stop you!
Shortly after arriving in Morocco, his money is stolen by a man he meets in a bar the bartender had tried to warn him about. The lesson here is that we see things how we want them to be, not how they really are.
This sudden misfortune causes Santiago to find a job in a crystal shop quickly. He ends up working there for a year and makes enough money to repurchase his sheep. At this point, he decides to end his dream and go back to his previous shepherd lifestyle.
After some thought and listening to his heart, he ultimately decides to continue his journey by joining a caravan and crossing the desert.
As the caravan gets closer to the pyramids, he learns many lessons and meets many people, including Fatima, whom he falls in love with.
Two of the lessons he learned while crossing the desert were BE OBSERVANT AND OPEN TO LEARNING NEW THINGS meaning that you can learn life lessons anywhere from anything at any time [ in this case, he learned from sheep, crystal, and desert].
The lesson comes in the conversation the boy had with the camel driver, who says to Santiago,” I don’t live either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate on your present, you will be a happy person.” – DON’T WORRY ABOUT PAST OR FUTURE BECAUSE EVERYTHING HAPPENS ONLY IN THE PRESENT MOMENT.
At one point, Santiago contemplated abandoning his journey to stay with Fatima, but ultimately, he decides to carry on his journey. This decision came after speaking with a mysterious alchemist he had just met, who knows the secret to turn the lead into gold and is about 200 years old. The alchemist accompanies him and mentors him until he reached the pyramids.
The lesson he learns from the alchemist is, DON’T LET ANYONE OR ANYTHING DERAIL YOUR DREAMS.
As they were traveling, Santiago asks the alchemist why he hasn’t taught him anything yet, which brings us to lesson 6: TAKE ACTION TO LEARN. This means along with your learning and study; you need to put your learnings into practice! The alchemist responds with, “There is only one way to learn…It’s through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey…”.;
Eventually, Santiago makes it to the pyramids, where he weeps for joy, realizing that his dream has come true. HE then begins to dig for treasure, where his tears fall. Because his heart has told him to do so.
At that time, he is confronted by some robbers who beat the crap out of him. One robber mocks him and says he once had a similar dream looking for treasure in a crumbling church. After they leave, Santiago puts two and two together and realizes the abandoned church that the robber is talking about; it is where he has his dream. That’s where the treasure is.
The story comes full circle as he arrives back at the same church where the story began. Once he is there, he has a big revelation, which leads us to our LESSON.
7: THE REAL TREASURE IS LEARNING!
The real treasure was not the riches he found buried beneath the church. Rather, the real riches were the lessons learned, the personal growth and improvements he made, and the experiences he had searching for his Personal legend [ that is his dream].
Here comes the last lesson, and it comes from the author, Paulo Coelho himself. When the book was published in 1988, it took 6 months to sell 2 copies, and they were to the same person!
After a year, the contract was cut and let loose. According to Coelho, ”But I never lost faith in the book or ever wavered in my vision.”
CONCLUSION
Never give up pursuing your personal legend. Just as Santiago never gave up on pursuing his personal legend, neither did Coelho. Despite the poor initial reception of the book, the book has gone on to sell over 65 million copies, being translated into 80 different languages [ a world record], and been on the NY Times bestseller list for 315 weeks!
Summary image by bookshelf: https://s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/rzp-prod-merchant-assets/payment-link/description/the%20alchemist%20summary%20low_frqsz7rsp4ibpn%20(1)_fa2tcvygf7xoun
Courtesy—Book Shelf
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