the fashion alphabet



The Alchemist; Paulo Coelho – I love this book. I am currently in page 38 and I’m already falling in love with it :) The Introduction Page itself has already gripped me to my seat. Maybe it’s because in this month of January, due to GOD’s amazing blessings, reading the book further strengthen my beliefs somehow. And I agree, reading this book is like – getting up at dawn and seeing the sun rise while the rest of the world still slept :)

What’s the secret behind a successful life?

We all need to be aware of our personal calling.

What is a personal calling then? It is GOD’s blessings; it is the path that GOD chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills you with enthusiasm, we are following our Legend. However, we don’t all have the courage to confront our own dream.

Why?

There are 4 obstacles:

First, we are told from childhood onward that everything we want to do is impossible. We grow up with this idea and as the years accumulated, so too the layers of prejudice, fear & guilt. There comes a time when our personal calling is so deeply buried in our souls as to be invisible. But its still there.

If we have the Courage to disinter our dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle – Love. We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream (my mom will kill me if i switch to a new job with a lower pay, just because i am bored with my current job & want a change). We do not realize that love is just a further impetus, not something that will prevent us going forward. We do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on that journey.

Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle – Fear – of the defeats we will meet on the path. We who fight for our dream suffer far more when it doesn’t work out, because we cannot fall back on the old excuse ‘Oh, well, I didn’t really want it anyway’. We do want it and know that we staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier than any other path, except that our whole heart is in this journey (was i selfish? what if the lower pay affects my financial freedom? how will my peers look & judge me? will i suffer from my own decision? what if it doesn't work out? what if it got worst, instead of being better?) Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how. Are defeats necessary? Well, necessary or not, they happen. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times. So, why is it important to live our personal calling if we are only going to suffer more than other people? Because, once we have overcome the defeats – and we always do – we are filled by a greater sense of euphoria and confidence. In the silence of our hearts, we know that we are proving ourselves worthy of the miracle of life. Each day, each hour, is part of the good fight. We start to live with enthusiasm and pleasure.

Then comes the fourth obstacle – the Fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives. The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we have to give up in order to get this far. I have known a lot of people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mistakes and never reached their goal – when it was only a step away. This is the most dangerous of the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing joy & conquest. But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of GOD, you help the Soul Of The World, and you understand why you are here.

Amazing isn’t it? It’s like GOD wants me to read this book and to understand what life is all about. The meaning of life's ups & downs. The understanding of the process to overcome the challenges. I will follow Santiago; the shepherd boy and see how his quest begin and ends :)