Personal Essay: How The Alchemist Changed My Life Forever As most people in Los Angeles are today, I was sharing an apartment with another roommate at a rent of $1,800 a month and commuting along the busy and noisy 405 to work everyday - two hours each direction, surrounded by traffic and angry people honking out of frustration. As I headed out for work every day and came back home after a long day, I eventually became more and more miserable as time passed - I stopped spending any valuable time with friends and family as I became bitter and sour spending most days and nights at a job that demanded more and more of me, I spent less time doing the things I used to enjoy like hiking or reading as I was worn out …show more content…
In the book, the main character Santiago initially starts thinking that he would have still reached his goal without having to had give up his sheeps and going on a long journey. However, he realizes at the end that without the long travelled journey, he would have never met the love of his life, never would have understood the meanings of omens and signs, never would have met the alchemist, and would have also never seen the pyramids. This is something I, myself have also realized since I left my job to finally start a path of my own and I hold this value to my core. Having set a path of my own finally recently, while I believe having goals are important, I also would not have traded my experiences and processes over the past year. Without going through the process, not only would I not know how to start my own business, but I would also not have been able to meet the person I ended up marrying to, not have been able to rekindle relationships with family and friends, and not understand the feeling of immense gratitude and sense of achievement I do now with building new products I care about from scratch and watching them benefit other people’s lives. This appreciation of processes and journeys is fundamental to why I now truly urge anyone to also go after their dreams. And while pursuing dreams, value the processes and enjoy the moment as they come. It is through this, that life can start feeling like