Span490 The Alchemist 2nd blog

I read and commented on my impression of the whole book in my last blog, but I hadn't read the introduction or the interview because I wasn't interested in reading them. In class on friday, we were discussing the definition of a Personal Legend. I would like to expand on this a bit based on the quotation in the introduction (pages v and vi)… “

“All I know is that, like Santiago the shepherd boy, we all need to be aware of our personal calling. What is a personal calling? It is God’s blessing, it is the path that God chose for you here on Earth. Whenever we do something that fills us with enthusiasm, we are following our legend. However, we don’t all have the courage to confront our own dream.”

The quotation defines what I believe a Personal Legend is, and I agree with this definition because it is what I base my life on, it is how and why I am where I am in life. I believe that people are born with/given gifts and talent, and with or without them, they dream and attempt to achieve them, and many succeed. Those who succeed have followed their ‘personal calling’ that was given with them with their talent. Of course there are the people who are born with a talent and would rather have another one, there are people who are afraid to pursue their talents and dreams …as mentioned at the end of the quotation and later in the “four obstacles” that are explained directly after the quotation on page vi. ….speaking of obstacles, I completely disagree with the first two. “First, we are told from childhood onward that everything we want to do is impossible….” …maybe my goal to live in a castle have all the money in the world and to have fairies as friends was impossible, but not everything I wanted to do was impossible or I wouldn’t be happy right now… and the second one… “ 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.” This makes me laugh…maybe this is true if we are women in the desert, or if we’re in long distance relationships and our partners go to school or work in another part of the world…but honestly…I guess based on this obstacle, I’ve been really lucky by always having my family and friends there for me when I have a problem with my goals, but it makes me wonder…how many students or professors at UBC have abandoned somebody? Maybe they’ve left them for awhile, but abandoned seems a little too strong of a word.

In conclusion…I realize that there are many people in the world who cannot achieve their goals for many reasons, and that is why we are lucky to live in this part of the world, but we’re also among the millions of readers of this book, and I think that the message of the introduction should apply to all of the readers.

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