The Alchemist

I flew back into town on Friday night, arriving early Saturday morning. It was a long hard day of travel following the long hours of driving through the DR for two days. My friends put on an amazing birthday/bon voyage party for me and I was overwhelmed at the amount of people who showed up wish me well. I ended up being exhausted by 2 AM due to the jet lag and that time down in the DR is four hours ahead so my body was telling me it was 6 AM. Here's a tip. Don't fall asleep at your own party around my friends. I woke up with a nice new tattoo on my back written in magic marker, I will get a pic and post it soon. Luckily I have managed to wash it off but it was also funny to find several broken bottles from the general chaos of my friends drinking until well after 7 AM. Good times as always.

While I was in Puerto Plata waiting for my flight I realized I hadn't brought a book or anything to read. I managed to find a small store in the airport that had a few books in English and after perusing a few of them I found an old copy of The Alchemist written by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. There is some irony in finding this book. Some years ago, a woman I was with shared several quotes from this book with me and recommended that I read it. Anyway, I never did so reading it now was interesting for me. The book basically is the story of a man who is driven to follow his dreams at whatever cost. He gets help along the way, makes several sacrifices and overcomes tremendous odds to achieve his goals. The irony of me reading it AFTER I had already made the decision to leave my life behind and start a new one struck me as I tore through the book. I had read the entire thing by Miami and I highly recommend it. I also read Bringing Down The House, which is a story of the MIT team of students that played blackjack and counted cards and made millions off of Vegas. This is another good read but I digress. I wanted to share a few things from this book so the following are some quotes from The Alchemist that I found applicable to my current station in life:

On Decision...
"When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision."

On Desire...
"When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it."

On the Language of Enthusiasm...
"Enthusiasm is displayed in all things accomplished with love and purpose and as part of a search for something believed in and desired."

On Living...
"I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. You'll see that there is life in the desert, and stars in the heavens, and that the tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival because life is the moment we are living right now."

On Courage...
"To follow your personal legend and believe in it, even when tested, even when your life is put at risk, when your past and future are at risk, when the things you hold dear are put at risk, is to live your life with courage.

On Being Tested...
"Every search begins with beginners luck and every search ends with the victors being severly tested."

On Drinking...
"It's not what enters men's mouths that's evil, it's what comes out of there mouths that is."

On Self Examination...
"When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."

On Repetition...
"When each day is the same as the next, it's because people fail to recognize the good things that happen in their lives every day that the sun rises."

On Bravery...
"Brave men despise cowards."

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

And my absolute favorite line in the book...
"The World's Greatest Lie: At a certain point in our lives we lose control of what's happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate."