In continuation of the last post, here are the remaining takeaways –

  1. Beginner’s luck- Because there’s a force that wants you to realize your destiny, it whets your appetite by taste of success.
  2. Making a decision is only beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.
  3. There’s only one way to learn. It’s through action, through personal experience.
  4. Listen to your heart, it knows all things. You will never be able to escape from your heart, so it’s better to listen to what it has to say.
  5. The fear of suffering is worst then suffering itself. 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.
  6. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out, indeed, to be a threatening place.
  7. Every search begins with beginners luck and every search ends with the Victor’s being severely tested. 
  8. The universe doesn’t tests because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realising our dreams, master the lessons we have learned as we have moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. In language of desert, “One dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on horizon.”
  9. When you possess great treasures within you and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.
  10. When something evolves, everyone around that thing evolves as well.
  11. When the alchemist gives some gold to a monk, monk says that the payment was beyond his generosity. To this the Alchemist replies, “Don’t say that again. Life might be listening and give you less next time.”
  12. The last obstacle on our path is that of realising the dream for which we have been fighting all our lives. It fills us with guilt. We look at those who have failed and feel that we also don’t deserve. This is the most dangerous obstacle as it has a saintly aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest.

With this I end this post. I express my gratitude to the author, Paulo Coelho, who wrote this beautiful book – The Alchemist.