After reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho which is a book about a Shepherd who find his treasure and personal legend in a journey that proved to be life and death elucidates man's purpose and dreams and the fears that hinders us from achieving them. Here are some of the questions I have culled from reading it, for most of us who have read it, and for many who haven't read it, I will advise you do, but still this questions are still for you too
What is my purpose?
From our birth, We are meant to believe that there is a reason why we are put on this earth, can one actually be born without a purpose, What of children born with defects? are they also with purpose too, Are purpose not an overrated way of getting us active on the slave mill to toil and suffer? Do we actually have one, does that purpose want us?
What/Who is my personal legend?
A personal legend is the final and living actualization of your dreams, the person you hope to be all these years that person could be a movie star you admire, or a football star or musician you hope one day to be like, We are all in the search for our personal legend, My question now is Do we actually have a personal legend? are they not regurgitation of the same old same old, Can a personal legend be free from the shackles of vanity, Do we know if our personal legend isn't an accursed one, Do we actually know what is in store for us?
How many do I have?
Here in Nigeria we are praised by the flexibility of our dreams and aspirations as we constantly move according to the tide of fortune and misfortune that usually wash on our shores incessantly from hoping of becoming a doctor to finding out that your physics teacher hates you to studying a course in the university you didn't actually hope for just to find out that there are no jobs waiting for you. One can have up to 3 to 4 personal legends depending on what rocks your boat and how rich or poor you feel in all ramifications. So How many personal legends can one have? just in case one doesn't work
What do I care about what people think?
More often than not we do care what people think, it shapes us and make us curtail ourselves and comport ourselves a little, what happens when we comport ourselves too much, and become afraid of public opinion, to get an excerpt from the Book" the Shepherd wondered if he should become a baker
Do I chase after my dreams?
First, we need to ask ourselves, what is a dream? is it really not the same old regurgitation of clever words or old dance moves, is it not the same unappreciated toil? why should you lose sleep over that? why do you feel you will have that one thing that will tip this dying world on its edge, why do you feel you are special and have to be listened to. why simultaneously not out of awe for the wonderful works of others who you dare not say you are close to in their level of mastery in whatever craft they do, So the question is if the universe plans or puts all in motion, Will you like Michael Kiwanuka ask if You are to rule the world, or will the world come to you? Do you really need to chase after that dream. because if 7 billion of us are all similar in goal and aspirations do we all have dreams?
How much is sane to spend on my dreams?
Peradventure you do chase after said dreams how much is sane enough to spend on a certain dream, For instance I have lots of dream and millions of dollars don't even cut half of what i need to fund my perfect plan for a good and green society which is one of my thousand dreams, But let's take a dream close to my heart that i do chase with an anchor of a job that holds me down and funds my dream how much is considered sane to chase after a dream, Do i spend all i have and become a pauper, Like the swindled Shepherd in this book and live entirely on fate or do i hold on to some sheep while i chase after my own treasure,
Do I have a back up plan?
Many of us are not as lucky as the shepherd, not many of us get to survive life in the desert, some of us die by the road side, when we do find out that we are tired out and have no appetite for chasing after this dream, maybe because of the accident of birth or the harsh reality of life the ultimate desert, Do we have a back up plan, like a last coin back to our own Andalusia to live out our lives as Shepherd or do we go all in till the end?
Am I afraid of myself?
Or it is really that I am just afraid of myself, Too many times we have held combs or television remote and looked in the mirror and performed to a stage of enthusiastic fans cheering on us, asking us to jump that they we are the best musician they have ever heard. And just when our shins begin to tire from jumping and our voice thins out from the mimicking of cheering crowd noises, we stop to dream or think for a minute and say "What if it happens" What do i do, How do i handle it, All of a sudden our hands are at our face shielding the flash from one zestful paparazzi who manage to get by your front door to take a picture of you in your sweaty shorts and all of a sudden you are flustered and embarrassed of yourself by yourself, and You get scared of an attention you don't have already and run from it. In reality some of us are too shy to carry out some of the crazy ideas that we have in our brains just because of the safe perception people have of us that we don't want to lose but some of these million dollar ideas are really what can make us be who we dream to be. In truth we have to hang our balls to be noticed.
Am I afraid of how my past and people As i posited earlier we have certain safe notion of how we want the world to see us, and it can be because of our past and some of the embarrassing moments we have had in our lives that cut our self esteem to our ankle level, thinking if i become what i dream to be some of these people will go and tell them this and tell them that, they will look at me and laugh and that alone can really make us not to want to attain certain goals.
Do I want to be a part time Shepherd,full time baker or part time baker and Is it possible to do both trades ?
In life we are caught between the sanity of chasing our dreams and actually doing something that feels worthwhile because of the maturity and responsibility that society puts on individuals of that age range still, is it possible that one can mix the two together really do something and also chase one’s personal legend which can be in form of traveling, going water skiing and actually detaching oneself from the social ladder greed attached to a job’s regimentation
Have I missed my personal legend?
The big miss, is it possible that in this game of charades called life, is it possible that we have missed our personal legend and following another's just maybe because we are good at it, we just seem to want to roll on and forget all about what is really ours, Can we be given a second chance if we did?
What herd am I terribly attached to?
Herds are things that can hinder us from just going out and chasing our dreams, they possess and provide us with a sense of comfort which can seem erratic to run from, they could be in form of a safe perspective people have of us, or a job that just pays the bills, or our family and this herd seem foolish to trade, How do we develop the strength to let go of our comfort which too a lot to get, to achieve a dream we are not really sure of?
Am I really all that What If am I just overrating myself?
The big question for me really is this, For you to trade that herd you have to be sure that you are really all that and not chasing after a self inflated ego that you can't control, Many a times we have gone for job applications or examinations sure of ourselves only to get there and find people who floored us with their intellect and they make you question yourself right there that all these while you thought you were intelligent, important or smart only to find someone beat you and do it well, so before you go chasing that dream, you need to be sure of yourself and know that you are not just overrating yourself
What is the principle of favorability does it apply where I live ?
The principle of favoribility shows that when we want something the universe automatically shape itself for it to happen in our favor, this seems kind of fallacious considering the dreams we all have and how hard and far fetched the reality of some of them seem, it could be the dream of being a footballer and the closest stadium to you seems so far, and nothing no matter how you wish for it to come true brings you close to a favorable omen no matter how you try,making me to ask if the principle of favorablilty is not location selective
What are the language of omens?
language of omens are cues and intuitions that guides our decisions about people, places and possibilities, they are activated in a microsecond and can make and mar us because the wrong vibe could be a literal matter of life and death. Take for instance, You are in a bus stop and an sparsely filled bus comes calling, there and then you have to depend on your intuition to know if you are going to enter the bus, and if you do if you will make it to your destination, Omen affects us as sometimes we can misread them, sometimes we can so sure but they range from an awkward clog of the feet before a journey to a glaring voice in your head at the point of danger.
Why do dreamers suffer ?
A very important question I have always asked my self is why do I have to suffer so much to achieve what I want, they are the dreamers but they lose sleep on the constant, nocturnal and fueled with the solution blueprint to every problem known to man yet they are armed with nothing but the skins on their hands and have to struggle even more than your average Joe to find money to achieve this dream of being a musician, a footballer, a doctor e.t.c and with that same money they have to fend for their selves, feed, be responsible family members and still find and fend for love where they find it. Opportunity cost comes in high supply as they shuffle between hurting their dreams and hurting their family in which with either choice they hurt themselves
Will it ever be clear, Will I ever be satisfied and Will it be worth it
Sometimes we can wish we find out what is wrong with us, To find out as clear as day that thing we are destined for, And not just settle and grab the only piece of rock we can find in this great waterfall, still we can only hope that we at least find the right path, I like to think that the iphone found Steve Jobs and not the other way around because as a graduate in his garage fiddling with computer stuff, he didn’t know the final product was going to be iphone he was just on that path and eventually it found him, or rather they found each other, of which I can still say is not the final destination maybe with more fiddling the iphone could be something bigger, to find out our dreams as clear we be as grand as we can hope
But when we search for this dreams their will be many things in life that will inevitably pass us by, and it can create a void of dissatisfaction so in chasing that which is clear as day probably hanging from the cloud do we stop to see if we haven’t smothered the bird at hand with our grip of determination, and when we finally say to our selves we achieved said dream can we say oh of course I am satisfied, it was all I hoped it would be, or will we be chased into the hugging arms of the emptiness we ran from all along
Making me ask after all the suffering when we evaluate do we With at the end when we chase after, and finally find the precipice we find, do we know if it will be worth it
by Victor Samuel
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