I read Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist over the course of a few days, and the book stirred something inside of me, and his words keep echoing in my mind afterwards. His words are simple, unforgettable, spiritual, and the plain truth.

His words stayed with me and changed something in me.

The best books tend to do that.

When you want something, the whole universe conspires to help you.

I’ve learnt to see the signs — the omens — of the universe conspiring to help me. I believe I’ve always known this inside, but it took these words to reaffirm it for me. I am now an omen-hunter on a daily basis.

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.

“Well, why don’t you go to Mecca now?” asked the boy. “Because it’s the thought of Mecca that keeps me alive.

Every day, the dream of who we could we be, what we could build, where we could go, what we could see, what we could do, keeps life interesting.

And better still to be alone with one’s books. They tell their incredible stories at the time when you want to hear them.

Books are the best escape, and you can schedule your escape. As opposed to TV, podcasts, anything else, where talking heads voice their opinions. Books tell their stories, and you are free to interpret them through the lens of your experience.

Photo by Karim Manjra on Unsplash.

If you start out by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work toward getting it.

The moment you promise what you don’t have yet, you’ve already told a lie. And you know it inside. And the fact that you lied makes you aware of your lesser self, makes you uneasy, and makes you want to run away from that moment. The desire to run away from your lesser self makes you lose your desire to fulfill the promise of the thing that you didn’t have in the first place.

“If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise,” said the seer. “If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur.”

Live in the present. Leave the future to itself. Whether it’s good or bad. Worrying about the future means suffering in the present, and losing sight of the present.

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.

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.

I needed to hear this. I need to believe that I do deserve my most important dreams, and that I will be able to achieve them. I need to renew that belief every day. I am not afraid of failure. I’ve got the scars and I am proud of them. It’s more that I need to believe that I am worthy of my most important dreams, and that they are attainable. By me.

Following your dream is like learning a foreign language; you will make mistakes but you will get there in the end.

I will.