I love to read so this Saturday at work instead of watching a movie to pass the time I read the Alchemist.
If you’ve never read it . . . you should! Maybe one of the reasons I love it so much is because it talks about confronting ones dream. Paulo Coelho introduces the novel by discussing why people never confront their dreams.
Why . . . Because:
“There are four obstacles. First: we are told from childhood onward that everything we want to do is impossible. We grow up with this idea, and as the years accumulate, so too do the layers of prejudice, fear, and guilt. There comes a time when our personal calling is so deeply buried in our soul as to be invisible. but it’s still there.
If we have the courage to disinter dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle: love. We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream. We do not realize that love is just a further impetus, not something that will prevent us going forward. We do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on that journey.
Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path. We who fight for our dream suffer far more when it doesn’t work out, because we cannot fall back one the old excuse: ‘oh, well, I didn’t really want it anyway.’ We do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier than any other path, except that out whole heart is in this journey. Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.
I ask myself: are defeats necessary?
Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for our dream, we have no experience and make many mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.
So, why is it important to live our personal calling if we are only going to suffer more than other people?
Because, once we have overcome the defeats--and we always do--we are filled by a greater sense of euphoria and confidence. In the silence of our hearts, we know that we are proving ourselves worthy of the miracle of life. Each day, each hour, is part of the good fight. We start to live with enthusiasm and pleasure. Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our soul, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.
Having disinterred our dream, having used the power of love to nurture it and spent many years living with the scars, we suddenly notice that what we always wanted is there, waiting for us, perhaps the very next day. The comes the fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our live.
Oscar Wilde said: ‘Each man kills the thing he loves.’ And its true. The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far. I have known a known a lot of people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mistakes and never reached their goal--when it was only a step away.
This is the most dangerous of all the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest. But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the world, and you understand why you are here.”
Paulo Coelho Vi-viii
I’m not really sure if Paulo Coelho is walking with the Lord, but I know that either way this can be related to our walk with Jesus. These obstacles definitely hit me when I think about where I’m headed and how I’ve gotten this far and how I’m going to get there. I constantly think about all the people I’m leaving behind to go on this Journey. I even often feel unworthy to serve Jesus despite knowing He has prepared me for it. Although all of the thoughts that Paulo Coelho has written have crossed my mind, I’m not going to stop fighting. You know, he says that, “the universe is conspiring in our favor.” I believe it . . . I believe that Jesus will stop at nothing to help me complete the Journey that he asked me to go on. I have resolved to not allow myself to get in the way of God--as best as I can--on this Journey. My whole heart is in this and I’m going to keep fighting!
I’m praying for those who read this, that you don’t let anything stop you from fulling your dreams, especially since it’s Jesus who gave you that dream!
