I enjoyed reading The Alchemist this weekend. I sense it is a book to be read and re-read. Layers of insights. A book about journeys and transformations. Like lead into gold.
Two excerpts in particular resonated with me – including one of the book’s well known quotes (emphasis mine):
“It’s a book that says the same thing almost all the other books in the world say,” continued the old man. “It describes people’s inability to choose their own Personal Legends. And it ends up saying that everyone believes the world’s greatest lie.” “What’s the world’s greatest lie?” the boy asked, completely surprised. “It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.”
…
The boy continued to listen to his heart as they crossed the desert. He came to understand its dodges and tricks, and to accept it as it was. He lost his fear, and forgot about his need to go back to the oasis, because, one afternoon, his heart told him that it was happy. “Even though I complain sometimes,” it said, “it’s because I’m the heart of a person, and people’s hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.”
Good timing for me as I deepen into my transformation journey. With courage and understanding in those moments when I am afraid to pursue my most important dreams. To remember that “the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself”.
Hartwig HKD via Compfight