the Zahir - in my words
It’s never easy to digest anything that’s from Paolo Coelho. Yet, it never failed to bring me new insights. I had just finished reading Coelho’s the Zahir. I had this book with me many months ago, but had too many (now, I thought are) silly excuses and delayed the reading. Anyway I read it at the right moment when I needed it. The key note that I got from Coelho in the Zahir, is about ‘reborn’, letting go of your personal history in order to be ‘reborn’ everyday. By personal history, it means no matter what we had achieved in life thus far – discipline teacher’s pet prefect in high school, the most celebrated student in college, awarded the most influential person in world # 1 bestseller magazine, earning millions etc. We shall not live life carrying those ‘status’ we ‘achieved’ all the time. If we do, it will become a burden, or making us into a self-centered ass! That would bring damage than mere encouragements. REBORN each day–here it means to let-go our status, more often than not, it means our SUCCESS. Always bare in mind that we are no exceptional (no better, nor less than perfect) in a crowd, it helps us to loosen up. A less forceful heart (mediocrity) enables us to think more profoundly. Moreover, every real life encounter is unique, never the same. We need to tackle each of them differently, and we may not be the best candidate in all occurrence. Therefore, mediocrity is the best approach to all. In that way, we would do more rightsss then wrongsss! When we are NOBODY, people praise us when we do slightly ‘better’, when we are SOMEBODY, we are being penalized when we did less impressive. I think — REBORN applies to mistake too. Mistakes — help us to grow (only when we realized it was a mistake). Mistakes—are not easy to realize. If you think there are easy, that means you had not done any big ones, yet. [Should be glad, you decide] The bigger mistakes, the nastier the lessons would be. As a SOMEBODY, you can’t avoid ‘hitting-yourself-into-hard-walls’ [directly translated from Chinese ;p] in the process to become wise. Otherwise, be a NOBODY to save yourself from the wall-hitting. Of course, you may get something else out of the Zahir, quoted Coelho, ‘If a book doesn’t self-explanatory, then the book isn’t worth reading’. ^^
