I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read The Alchemist. My Goodreads says three. My Goodreads is wrong.
It’s one of my favourite books, and it’s barely a book at all. Paulo Coelho wrote it as a fable, and you could get through it in a couple of sittings. It doesn’t ask much of you, and it gives you a lot.
Santiago is a shepherd boy in Andalusia, in the south of Spain. He keeps having the same dream about treasure hidden near the pyramids in Egypt. So he sells his sheep and goes. On the way he gets robbed and works for a crystal merchant. He crosses the desert, falls in love and meets an alchemist who teaches him to listen to his heart.
Early on he meets an old king who tells him about his Personal Legend. That’s Coelho’s name for the thing you’re meant to do with your life. Most people know what theirs is when they’re young, the king says. Then life gets in the way, and they decide it’s impossible. Santiago’s whole trip is about not letting that happen. Along the way he learns to read omens, the small signs that show up when you’re heading the right way.
Coelho has a nice idea about beginner’s luck. When you first set out after something that matters, things often seem to fall into place, as if the world wants you to get started. After that comes the testing, when it gets hard and you’re tempted to give up. Most of the book happens in that second part, which feels about right to me.
I’ll try not to spoil the ending, though it’s hardly a secret. It’s a story about someone who travels the world looking for something, only to discover it was right in front of him all along.
The way I read it, the question is this. What are you looking for that’s actually staring back at you in the mirror?
“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
That line gets mocked a bit. It sounds like you wish hard enough and the universe sends a parcel. In the book, Santiago gets robbed, loses nearly everything and spends months cleaning crystal in a shop to earn his way back. The universe helps him. He still has to walk.
There’s an Englishman in the book, too, trying to learn alchemy from a pile of books. Santiago learns more by watching the desert. That’s a lesson for someone like me, who reads about a book a week. Reading about something only gets you so far. At some point you have to put the book down and go and do it.
The crystal merchant
There’s a character in it worth meeting. The crystal merchant has always dreamed of going to Mecca. He never goes. He’s scared that if he does, he’ll have nothing left to dream about. So the dream sits on a shelf, safe and untouched, for years.
I know that feeling. I got stuck and procrastinated whilst writing a book about overcoming procrastination. Some dreams are easier to keep than to chase, because chasing them means you might fail. Coelho is clear that fear of failing is what stops most of us, far more than any lack of talent or luck.
The other half of the book is gratitude. Follow your dream and listen to your heart. Learn to be grateful for what you’ve already got, and you realise you already have everything that matters.
That’s the part I practise most. Every night before I sleep, I write a gratitude list. At least three things, and my rule is they can’t be the same as the day before, so it never turns into a routine. You go back over your day, you feel it again, and you put your head on the pillow at peace.
Doing that every night is a bit like Santiago’s trip in miniature. You go looking for treasure in your day, and most nights it was there all along. You just hadn’t stopped to notice it.
I’m not saying never go looking. Santiago had to go all the way to Egypt to find out where the treasure really was. Sometimes the trip is how you learn to see what you’ve got.
If you’ve read it already, my free guide, 50 Books That Shaped Me, has the rest of the books I keep rereading.
Santiago crossed a desert to find out where to dig. You might not need to go quite that far.
