The Alchemist

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

This is the famous quote found in the story, The Alchemist, a famous book written by
a Brazilian named Paulo Coelho. In this book Paulo presents a simple life of a shepherd boy who followed his “dream” even if it meant to abandon his family and disregard his own emotion.

I admire how Santiago, the protagonist, pursue his desire to travel and how his father understands him. Being poor is not a reason why we should stop dreaming. Big things happen because someone had dreamed about doing them. In this book, the author shows
that each person has a great part in helping us achieve our dreams may we not
know it but we meet different people who play important role for us to realize
our dreams.

Santiago became a shepherd so he could realize his dream to travel. Every person that he met in the story seems to know he would be successful. When he visited a fortune teller to consult his recurring dream, the fortune teller made a deal that he should give 1/10 of his wealth then he immediately agreed thinking that it was just for fun.

He wanted to go to Africa to visit the pyramid and find the treasure. He sold some of his cattle’s so he could have the money for his journey in Africa. Someone fooled him and left him with nothing. He worked with a merchant and when he had enough money he left the store and continue his journey to the pyramid.

On their way, they stopped in an oasis and had an encounter with Arabs. He saved
the villagers when he told them his premonition. He was given gold. He met a girl in the oasis and promised that he would come back for her. He went to the Alchemist and they had a journey together going to the pyramid. The alchemist taught him things which are
impossible for him to do, but he was about to do them, like turning himself into a wind.

He reached to the pyramid and met a robber who got his gold and money and left him
nothing. This robber told him that he’s stupid about following his dream since he also had the same dream about a treasure buried somewhere near a tree at the back of the chapel in Spain. Then at this moment, Santiago immediately went home and dig the treasure in the place described by the robber. He found a box of treasure of different types. He then went back to the fortune teller and gave him 1/10 of the wealth he found and went back to Africa to fulfill his promise to Famita.

This story is a good example of having big dreams, and working hard to get them. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try sometimes we couldn’t just get what we wanted for the universe works together for us to realize our dreams. With this I believe that everything happens for a reason, but we don’t have the skills to understand all reasons, sometimes we just think we got lucky but we actually got something that was a product of interconnections from all the people we meet.