LISTEN.well

I want to share my favorite part of Paolo Coelho's book--THE ALCHEMIST. 

I hope that, as you read, you will come in contact with your heart and learn its language. Listen closely as it tells you its desires and dreams. Happy reading

The boy's name was SANTIAGO. 

“Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” the boy asked.

The alchemist replied “because, wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure.”

“But my heart is agitated,” the boy said. “It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and it’s become passionate over a woman of the desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I’m thinking about her.”

“Well, that’s good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say.”

The boy’s heart began to speak of fear; at times it told the boy that it was satisfied: it had found love and riches.

“My heart is a traitor,” the boy said to the alchemist. “It doesn’t want me to go on.”

“That makes sense,” the alchemist answered. “Naturally it’s afraid that, in pursuing your dream, you might lose everything you’ve won.”

“Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?”

“Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you’re thinking about life and about the world.”

“You mean I should listen, even if it’s treasonous?”

“Treason is a blow that comes unexpectedly. If you know your heart well, it will never be able to do that to you. Because you’ll know its dreams and wishes, and will know how to deal with them.

“You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you’ll never have to fear an unanticipated blow.”

One afternoon, the boy's heart told him that it was happy. “Even though I complain sometimes,” it said. “it’s because I’m the heart of a person, and people’s hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.”

“My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,” the boy told the alchemist.

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

He told his heart. “When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I’ve known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seems impossible for a shepherd to achieve.”

His heart spoke to him later that evening; telling him that all people who are happy have God within them.

“Everyone on earth has a treasure that awaits him.” His heart said. “We, people’s hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life proceed, in its own direction, toward its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them—the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.

“So, we, their hearts, speak more and more softly we never stop speaking out, but we begin to hope that our words won’t be heard: we don’t want people to suffer because they don’t follow their hearts”

“Why don’t people’s heart tell them to continue to follow their dreams?” the boy asked the alchemist

“Because that’s what makes a heart suffer most, and hearts don’t like to suffer.”

The boy asked for his heart to please, never stop speaking to him.

“…before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which… one dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.”

“…every search ends with the victor’s being severely tested.”

Remember… “the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.”

Life really is generous to those who pursue their Personal legend.