“Living off borrowed time, the clock tick faster”, is how the rapper ,DOOM, simplifies life. Every human-being is given about 100 years, 900,000 minutes, and however many millions of minutes from the moment of birth. Death ensures that humans steadily repay the mass loan of time each day. With such a huge investment given, it is to be used wisely to ultimately make lives valuable in the end. So, what decisions do people have to take to make their lives valuable?
In Paulo Coelho 's book The Alchemist, Coelho suggests that life is valuable when there is balance of the pursuit of a “personal legend”, and being happy. Early in the book the protagonist meets a wise-old king, who educates him on life and its purpose. The wise old man tells a story of a boy who sought the same answer as he did, in his story the boy meets this all-knowing wise man and asks for the meaning of life. The old-man gives him the menial task of balancing oil in a spoon and to see the beauty of his house. The old man concludes by stating, “The secret to happiness is to see all the marvels of the world and to never forget the drops of oil on the spoon” (Coelho 32). The spoon of oil represents a burden, a task that humans are to pursue, while the “marvels” are the carnations of happiness and indulgence that which the physical world offers. When the scale tips, a person can become either selfish or dreadful. For example, when the protagonist meets a crystal merchant, who has been selling for many years at the
People often find the need to seek the meaning of life. They feel as though there has to be more to life or that they are blinded to something vital in the grand scheme of things. Different people use different means, some go on grand journeys hoping to find some sort of wisdom in their experience. This is where we find a parallel in the lives of Chris McCandless and Siddhartha, the main characters of Into the wild by Jon Krakauer and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. In both stories the main character lives a well off life but becomes dissatisfied by societal conventions.
Final Essay
Novelist Paolo Coelho’s wrote in his novel The Alchemist, “It is not until much later that children understand; their stories and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the water of their lives.” In this quote, Paolo conveys many children grow up with a sense of ignorance to their parents care. In the poem “The Rain Coat,” by Ada Limon, the main speaker demonstrates this by saying, “My whole life I’ve been under her raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel that I never got wet.” (Lines 23-25)
Ramifications of chasing traditional rewards in, “How Not to Get into College”, “Somnambulist”, and “Iced- Cream”
Albert Einstein once said, “Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value”. Implying that people tend to get blinded in the hunt of personal triumph in their lives that they forget what really is important to them. Similarly, in Alfie Kohn’s How “Not to Get into College”, Daniel Barwick’s “The So Called Iced Cream” and Heron Jones’s “Somnambulist”, the authors develop the message that, people assume that chasing external rewards equals joy and satisfaction in their lives.
In the book the Alchemist (by Paulo Coelho) Santiago learns many things along the way to achieving his personal legend. He gained skills and experience in things across the board, from how to clean crystals, to the 5 obligations of Muslims, to the basics of alchemy. Santiago learns from the wise, and educated, but also learns the meaning of a true friendship. Overall it is true that reaching one 's personal legend is life 's greatest treasure, but often the journey is just as valuable.
Because of the alchemist telling him this, he knows his Personal Legend and continues to work for it.
Out of the many challenges people face in life, some still just give up instead of persevering. The Alchemist, however, shows that people should never give up, but instead fight through bad situations to complete their goals. Others may think we are just suffering when we persevere, but “no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity” (Coelho 134).
"What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate." (Thoreau). This quote means that every person can have a fulfilling life if they believe in themselves. It suggests that everyone who pursues their dreams and does not allow obstacles to stop them is commanding of their own fate. As exhibited in The Alchemist and The Power of Myth, the quote is a true statement that is applicable to all people.
Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. As this anonymous quote elucidates, fear acts as a barrier that essentially traps us in our comfort zone, limiting our experiences and holds one back from achieving his or her potential. In The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, the protagonist must overcome his own fear through obstacles that he comes across as fear diverts one from their purpose.
To begin with, Santiago displays his fears throughout the book, and these fears are what hinders him from achieving his Personal Legend. Santiago displays an immense terror of failure.
However, through disregarding everything but his dream, Santiago understands his real potential. In this way, he inserts to the Soul of the World. With this under consideration, many questions can be brought up. What is the attitude of The Alchemist towards material wealth and individualism, and how does this relate to significant religions?
Unlike various religions, The Alchemist does not differentiate between the material and the spiritual world.
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure,” cautions Paulo Coelho in The Alchemist. Everyone has dreams but not everyone dares to make them come true. One of my dreams is I want to study abroad and experience other cultures. Applying KGSP scholarship is my first step to achieve my dream. In my quest for a suitable graduate program, I was thrilled to learn that Food and Nutrition Department at Yonsei University offers a graduate curriculum that match my need.
In the story the alchemist it is discovered that there are many different things in life to look forward to. There is also something in the story that is a moral or your life´s destiny called your personal legend. Your personal legend is one of those things in life that some people look up to in the future. Santiago travels the world to pursue his personal legend. Santiago strived to find his personal legend with the help of people he met on the way to find treasure that he is destined to find , just to realize the treasure was where he had fallen asleep in the beginning of the book.
“It was a pleasure to burn.”
This is the very first sentence of Ray Bradbury’s novel, “Fahrenheit 451.” Just from reading this sentence you can probably imagine how the rest of this future-based dystopian flows on. This is a world where there are television screens as walls, high-speed cars, and everything tries to make everyone happy. Sounds pretty sweet, right?
Decision-making through the theory of Existentialism
Existentialism is a philosophy which means finding self or finding meaning of life. It is theory which talks about freedom. Paulo Coelho in the novel The Alchemist talks about Santiago’s dilemmas and how he takes decision.
“The most finite resource for all humans is time.” My father says this to me all the time, and I’m beginning to understand why he says it. So my personal philosophy, at this point in time, is that since time on Earth is limited, one must make that short time meaningful and make the most of that time. This can be done by living life by a moral code, chasing one’s goals, as well as being aware of one’s own deficiencies.
Living by a moral code requires that one defines that code.
As Douglas Everett once said,"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. " What this essentially means is that there are people who live in dreams, the other’s live in mind and there are some who believe that true meaning of living exists in following their dreams so they try to make their dreams reality. I agree with this quote because some people just dream about things and leave it; while, others don’t believe in dreams at all. Then there are some people who actually try to convert their dreams into reality because they think that dreams are for a reason. This quote is best designed for Paulo Coelho book titled “The Alchemist” as Santiago constantly works to convert his dream into reality
1. The Tourism industry and Leisure time
The time is a very valuable asset, that anyone can ever posses. The time people spend for something is unconsciously defining what is valuable and valueless for them. Few of the main areas, human beings spend time for are leisure and tourism.
