"THE SECRET OF LIFE IS TO FALL SEVEN TIMES AND GET UP EIGHT TIMES"

Pic.: Chetna Shetty

There is a book by the title – ‘The Confessions of a Pilgrim’. If you are a great fan of Paulo Coelho and his books, I highly recommend that you should read this book. In this book, Paulo, for the first time, opens up and talks about his life – most of it may shock you – to the noted Spanish correspondent, Juan Arias.

Yes, like millions did, I, too, became a Paulo fan after reading his cult classic – ‘The Alchemist’.  Soon, I would read his other classics as well. But, it was only after reading ‘Confessions’ that my respect for Paulo shot up a hundred notches higher!

I admire great people when they reveal us their human side – the weak, fallible and vulnerable side. It makes me cry in my mind, “Hey, he is just like me… He sins as I do, bleeds as I do, fears as I do, worries as I do, fails as I do, and, above all, he dreams, longs and loves as I do.”

Was not Paulo a ‘boy’ like you and me, once? Was he not the same boy who goes about following his dream in ‘The Alchemist’? Are not those inspiring and soothing words in ‘The Alchemist’ the words you and I would pump us with, every time we fear and tend to give up on our dreams?

I go back to these, over and over again:

“Why do we have to listen to our hearts?" the boy asked.
"Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you will find your treasure.” 

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” 

 “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.”

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”

 “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that 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.”

“No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it.” 

 “Don't give in to your fears. If you do, you won't be able to talk to your heart.”

“This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there's no need at all to understand what's happening, because everything happens within you.”

“People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.”

“Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.”

 “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.”

 “When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.” 

 “Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.” 

The shepherd boy in the ‘Alchemist’ is you, me and Paulo. The ‘treasure’ – the ‘personal legend’ – the boy goes in search of will very much be found at the very same place – in the heart of our hearts. Let’s listen to our hearts, therefore… Let’s remind ourselves, once more this:

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” 

GERALD D’CUNHA