People face many obstacles trying to achieve their goals and, at some point, they feel like there’s nothing that can be done to keep going. People would think of giving up their dream because they believe it’s too hard. Yet, at some point, people will also think it through and decide to keep moving forward to achieve their Personal Legend. Along the same lines, the novel The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, highlights the obstacles one will face when reaching your Personal Legend. The story takes place in Andalusia, Spain where a young man named Santiago becomes aware of his Personal Legend.
Santiago is a very courageous person and chooses to become a shepherd, even though his parents wanted him to become a priest. Santiago travels from Andalusia to Egypt, Africa to find the treasure that he had dreams about and he learns about his Personal Legend. Throughout his journey, Santiago faces many obstacles, but he still had the courage to continue his journey to find his Personal Legend. Santiago is also a very cautious person, and throughout the book, Santiago’s personality transforms. Therefore, the process in which he becomes aware of his Personal Legend, and he obstacles he must overcome, result in a deep transformation.
His experiences along his quest shaped Santiago’s Personal Legend. As the story begins with Santiago, the shepherd, having a restless lifestyle before meeting Melchizedek and becoming aware of his Personal Legend. Santiago’s life at the beginning of the story was very routinely because he would read books, interact with his sheep, and would also travel with his sheep around Andalusia. Yet, being a shepherd, for Santiago, had been very restless because Andalusia was becoming a bit smaller for him. Santiago had reams about a child and some pyramids that were located in Egypt.
So, he went to a gypsy to have his dream translated for him and was told that he had a treasure waiting for him in the pyramids. Therefore, Santiago decides to start his journey because that made him even more aware of his Personal Legend. As Santiago starts his journey, he meets a man named Melchizedek, who advises Santiago to continue with his journey. His life changes in a very dramatic way after encountering Melchizedek because he was able to see things from different perspective. He would become more aware of new adventures nd learn a whole new thing.
Another way that Santiago’s life changed after encountering Melchizedek, was that Santiago became very inspired to pursue his Personal Legend. As he interacts more with Melchizedek, Santiago continues to receive advice. Melchizedek gives Santiago two small stones called “Urim” and “Thummim” that would help along the journey and help make better decisions. Melchizedek also introduces him to the concept of omens, which would also help Santiago in his journey. As the author claims, “In order to find the treasure, you will have to follow the omens.
God has prepared a path for everyone to follow. You just have to read the omens that he left for you” (Coelho pg. 31-32). Thus, we can see that the omens would be productive for Santiago to be more aware of his Personal Legend. As you can visualize, Melchizedek helps Santiago become aware of his upcoming journey and how Santiago’s life was restless. In addition, Santiago faced many obstacles on his quest to fulfill his Personal Legend. One obstacle he encountered was getting robbed in Tangiers by a man who was suppose to be Santiago’s guide, in the beginning of his actual journey.
Santiago had trusted this man to take him to buy some camels to use in his travel to the Pyramids in Egypt; therefore, Santiago made the bad decision to give the man all the money he had for his journey. As they were on their way to go see the camels, Santiago got distracted viewing an awesome sword, and the guide had the opportunity to rob Santiago by running away with his money. As soon as Santiago knew he had been robbed, he felt sorry and ashamed of himself. As a result, Santiago also felt hopeless and saddened.
The author writes, “He was so ashamed that he wanted to cry.. he wept. He wept because God was unfair, and because this was the way god repaid those who believed in their dreams” (Coelho pg 42). In other words, Santiago regrets taking the journey and following his dreams, but then realizes that it was a very honest mistake. Initially, Santiago felt that he was being punished by God for following his dreams, and also for starting with his own journey. Santiago didn’t know that, in the long run, that obstacle would be a blessing to him and make him have more faith and more knowledgeable of not trusting people easily.
The way Santiago handles this obstacle is by receiving faith from the stones that Melchizedek had given him, and that made Santiago glad. Santiago also overcomes this obstacle by thinking that he had to accept the reality, and that everything happens for a reason. Then he starts to see all the positive results in his negative experiences, making Santiago more determined to finish what he started. Now from this obstacle, Santiago gained a job at a Crystal Shop that would make him earn money. After this obstacle, he decided he would not be a victim, but make an
However, Santiago learned two main lessons in the process of fulfilling his Personal Legend and had a major change in his life from the beginning to end. The first lesson Santiago learned in his journey was to look for omens. Omens had a physical effect Santiago because they helped him predict the future, or at least, have a better understanding of what would be going on. He had evolved into a great alchemist with great power to do anything he wanted to. The second lesson he learned was being able to learn the “language of the world,” which is the universal language.
Learning the universal language transformed Santiago into a person who would be able to comprehend many things. Knowing the universal language helped Santiago evolve spiritually to be able to understand the language people spoke and the language that nature spoke too. Learning these lessons proved that Santiago’s adventure out of it. life had change from beginning to end. In the beginning of Santiago’s life, he was caught in a life of routine activities that bored to him. But later on, his life became more spiritual, enriched, and adventurous.
Changing lifestyles was a major hange in Santiago because he was now capable of understanding many things. This transformed Santiago into a different person because he was also more capable of doing more things than when he had the same routines every day. These two main learned lessons and his transformation influenced Santiago’s Personal Legend. All in all, Santiago’s Personal Legend was pursued by Santiago’s awareness, his obstacles, and his deep change from beginning to end. From reading this novel, I learned you should always follow your Personal Legend and keep working hard to succeed in life.
Therefore, the novel’s main theme is to keep working hard, no matter how many obstacles you will encounter. After reading this book, the author wanted us to learn to never give up in life and to keep moving on our journey to reach our goals. He taught us that the obstacles you face may actually become helpful in the long run. Reading The Alchemist, taught me to work hard to meet my goals. This novel also taught me the obstacles I face can help me learn and can influence my Personal Legend. This novel not only gave me lessons, but also inspired me to work hard for my Personal Legend.
