The Story of an Andalusian Shepherd Boy

A 10 mins summary of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

An Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago dreams of a treasure while in a ruined church one evening while tending to his flock. He consults a Gypsy fortune-teller about the meaning of the recurring dream who interprets it as a prophecy, telling the boy that he will discover a treasure at the Egyptian pyramids.

After Santiago leave the Gypsy disappointed, he meets an old king Melchizedek - the king of Salem, who tells him to sell his sheep to travel to Egypt and accomplish his "Personal Legend". Santiago sells his sheep and sets off to Africa. On arriving Africa, a man who claims to be able to take Santiago to the pyramids robs him of the money he had made from his flock sale and Santiago then decides to work for a crystal merchant to earn enough to continue his journey.

When he has earned enough Santiago sets out and along the way, the boy meets an Englishman who has come in search of an Alchemist and continues his travels with his new companion. When they reach an oasis, Santiago meets and falls in love with an Arabian girl named Fatima, to whom he proposes marriage. She promises to marry him only after he completes his journey to the Pyramid. Frustrated at first, he later learns that true love will not stop or force one to sacrifice their destiny for it.

The boy then encounters a wise alchemist, who teaches him to realize his true self. Together, they risk a journey through the territory of warring tribes, where Santiago is forced to demonstrate his oneness with the "Soul of the World" by turning himself into a dust storm before he is allowed to proceed. When he reaches the pyramids and begins digging, he is robbed once again by thieves of the money he made on his journey. They ask him what he is digging for; he replies that a dream has led him to buried treasure. The thieves scoff, and the leader remarks about a dream he once had about treasure under a tree at a ruined church. Santiago then realizes the treasure he sought was where he had his original dream all along. He smiles because even though it seems all this journey was a waste, he gained valuable experience on the way.

TAKEAWAYS FROM THE BOOK

• It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.

• It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.

WHEN YOU WANT SOMETHING, ALL THE UNIVERSE CONSPIRES IN HELPING YOU TO ACHIEVE IT.

• When each day is the same, it’s because you fail to recognize the good things that happen in your life every day that the sun rises.

• The secret to happiness is to see all the marvels of the world and never forget the drops of oil on the spoon – the important stuff.

• In money there is magic, whoever has money is never really alone.

• Everyone sees the world in terms of what they would like to see happen, not what is actually happening.

• Even with doubts about decisions, understand that making decisions was only the beginning of things. When one makes a decision, they are really diving into a strong current that will carry them to places they never dreamed of when they made the decision.

• Hunches is the universal language that deals with past and present of all people and Intuition is a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to just know things because it’s all written there.

• No matter how many detours and adjustments the caravan made, it moved towards the same compass point. Once obstacles were overcome, it returned to its course.

• The Caravan Driver: The land was ruined and I had to find some other way to earn a living. The disaster taught me to understand that people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want. We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions, but this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.

• Things are complicated so that those who have the responsibility for understanding can understand. It’s only those who are persistent and willing to study things deeply that achieve mastery.

• The Englishman: To be successful, I must have no fear of failure. It was my fear of failure that first kept me from attempting the master work. Now I am beginning what I could have started ten years ago. But I’m happy at least that I didn’t wait twenty years.

Why so interested in the future? If you want to know so you can change things you don’t want to happen, then they wouldn’t be a part of the future anymore. If you want to know so you prepare, then good things which ought to be a pleasant surprise wouldn’t be anymore and for bad things, you would be suffering long before they even occur.

• The future though can be guessed from the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. If you improve on it, what comes later will also be better.

• Every day is there to be lived or to mark one’s departure from the world.

• Love never keeps a man from pursuing his destiny. If he abandons that pursuit, it’s because it wasn’t true love - the love that speaks the language of the world.

• One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.

• There is only one way to learn, it’s through action. Everything you need to know; you have learned through your journey.

• Some are seeking treasure of their destiny without wanting actually to live out the destiny.

• All you need, is where you are. So, immerse yourself in it. You don’t need to understand the entire desert, all you need is contemplate a single grain of sand and you will see in it all the marvels of creation.

• The darkest hour of the night comes just before dawn.

• Look into people’s eyes, your eyes show the strength of your soul. Don’t let them see you are afraid.

• There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible, ‘the fear of failure.’

• When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too. When we love, we always strive to become better than we are.

LISTEN TO YOUR HEART, IT KNOWS ALL THINGS BECAUSE IT CAME FROM THE SOUL OF THE WORLD AND IT WILL ONE DAY RETURN THERE.

Listen to your heart because wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure.

One of the best conversations in the book;

The boy said, “My heart is agitated. It has its dream, it gets emotional, and it becomes passionate over a woman. It asks things of me and it keeps me from sleeping many nights when I am thinking about her.”

“Well, that’s good”, replied the alchemist. “It means your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say.”

“My heart is a traitor. It doesn’t want me to go on.”

“That makes sense”, replied the alchemist. “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?“ Asked the boy

“Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you preferred 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 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 unexpected blow.”

“I am happy.” said the heart to the boy. “Even though I complain sometimes, it’s because I am the heart of a person, and people’s heart 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, the hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that would have been good but weren’t or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because when these things happen, we suffer terribly.”

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

Arab proverb ‘Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.’

Life is generous to those who pursue their destiny.