Assimilating Paulo Coelho's, The Alchemist

Assimilating Paulo Coelho’s, The Alchemist

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” Yes, indeed! When we give our best to something honestly, there’ll be no force that keeps us away from achieving it. It is not an exaggeration but a concept assimilated by over 84 million readers of The Alchemist a reality lived by many more. Born on August 24, 1947, Paulo Coelho de Souza, a Brazilian novelist and lyricist, has become one of the world’s most celebrated authors who holds the Guinness World Record of ‘the most translated book’ by a living author. As a reader in my late teens, I find his ideas strong enough to shape the vision of my life.

I see the dreams, faith, omens, love, religion and spirituality explained by Coelho to be realistic in all aspects. We all have thrown stones, but have we ever thought that the stone reaches near the point, if not exactly to the point where we had imagined? I guess not. Actually, what I refer to is the scratch to our goals—dream and imagination. Had Santiago not seen a recurring dream about a child who tells him about a hidden treasure he would find if he travelled to the Egyptian pyramids, would he have ever travelled so far and learned so much? Obviously not. Like Santiago we must dream too, and follow our dreams. The process we follow our dream and achieve is cyclic. We follow goals through a long way and when we will have completed following it, the goal itself follows us back. In fact, Newton’s third law of motion is applicable here as well, because the action that we perform when we chase our goals is equal to the reaction from the goal that follows us. So believe in Newton, if not me, to strive and pursue your goals because it won’t go in vain.

Another aspect described by Coelho is love. Love should be unconditional, but it should be kept a step behind the primary goal of our life. Santiago’s life would have been ordinary and monotonous if he had remained at the oasis and not lived out his Personal Legend. Santiago and Fatima would have been happy for some time, but gradually Santiago would regret of not perusing out his Personal Legend and sooner or later Fatima would feel that she was the reason behind Santiago to abandon his dreams. Eventually, Santiago would no longer be able to read omens and he would not find his goal. So, goal of life should precede love.

Likewise, Coelho believes that we should value spirituality in place of organized religion. Spirituality is a broad concept relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or things. A spiritual person knows they don’t have to contribute to everything. They are content with the silence. In fact, most spiritual practices incorporate a practice of being content to offer nothing to the noise. Steve Jobs says “Don’t let the sound of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” In fact, total concentration on our goals is possible only when we are isolated from outer disturbances. According to thermodynamics, for a system to be in equilibrium it should be isolated i.e. there should be zero interaction between system and surrounding. We can achieve thermal equilibrium state and step towards the goal if we are isolated from disturbance.

In sum, I see The Alchemist not only as a fictional novel but a treasure full of life-changing lessons. It is a brilliant piece of literature that teaches us the right ways of thinking and developing right attitude to succeed. After all, we must dream to make a scratch because “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

Paulo coelho has been one of my favorite writers from the day i read "The Alchemist". If you haven't read this book yet, or incase you are searching for some good reads go grab a copy of "The Alchemist" straight away. I bet you won't regret it. Good day people. :)