As I recently said to one of my friend, depending on the
moment of your life you are reading a book, you can be led to different
appreciations. In facts, what you have experienced and/or are currently
experiencing can affect the way you read, like and understand a book. This is
what I discovered when I read for the second time Aleph by Paulo Coelho. The first time I read this novel, I was
quickly annoyed by the story and could not end it. Although I would not
classify it as one of my favorite books, after reading it twice, I have learned
great lessons that I would like to share with you.
1-
We are what we wish to be
For me, the best illustration for this context is the example
of the relationship between children and parents. Some kids are willing to
foregone or even abandon their dreams to choose the career their parents want
them to pursue. As a result, a lot of
people end up doing a job they hate and make them feel sad. Finally they will
always complain about the choice their parents “forced” them to make. Paulo Coelho
said “we are not the person other people wish we were. We are who we decide to
be. It’s always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming
the world but your successes or failures are entirely your own responsibility“.
2-
Take risk and do what you desire
People are always going to carp whatever you do. Even the
greatest messengers, Muhammad, Jesus, and Moises (Peace be upon them) did not make unanimity so it’s
clear that you won’t please to everyone. You are a human and it’s obvious that
you may fail in your experiences but you need to learn this advice of Coelho. “Don’t
be intimidated by other people’s opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself,
so take risks and do what you really want to do. Seek out people who aren’t
afraid of making mistakes and who, therefore, do make mistakes. Because of
that, their work often isn’t recognized, but they are precisely the kind of people
who change the world and, after many mistakes do something that will transform
their own community completely.”
3-
Visit your soul instead of visiting your past
For many people it is difficult to go beyond the errors of the
past. We tend to be stuck in what we should or could have done to change our
present. We need to know that we can’t go in the past to change what happened.
This is actually what I always say when a friend of mine is moping because of
bad grades. The most important is what you can do now to improve your
situation. The writer said “it takes a huge effort to free yourself from
memory, but when you succeed, you start to realize that you’re capable of far
more than you imagined. Visit your soul, don’t visit your past.”
4-
To live is to experience things
In Aleph which by the way is defined by the point where
everything, the whole universe in contained, the narrator has spent years
learning his environment, theories about life, spirituality. At a specific
point of his life, he felt like he was engaged in a routine and started having
doubt about the path he was following. His master J. convinced him to
experience something new. Aleph is therefore a trip for Paulo Coelho to
discover himself. This journey led him to travel with the Trans-Siberian from
the first station to the end of the railway. Like the first time I read it,
many people will find this book annoying or difficult to understand especially
in the beginning. But if there is only one thing that must be grabbed from this
reading, it is that “to live is to experience things, not sit around pondering
the meaning of life.”
