An Essay On The Alchemist

In life, any given person will have an abundance chances to give up on their dreams, but will be better off if they choose to take the road less travelled and to continue on to achieve their “personal legend, just as Santiago does in the book: The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. Santiago, (Also known as “the boy”) has a great wealth of opportunities from start to finish to abandon his quest to the pyramids, but in the end, he chooses to forging onward despite all the different chances he had to settle down and make a comfortable living for himself, each time doing something different for a living, but each of these things that Santiago could have done had one thing in common: No matter which one he chose, if Santiago decided to go on with any of these opportunities, he would never be able to achieve his personal legend.
Sometimes, it can be hard for a person to choose to go on to achieve their personal legend, but Santiago persevered, and went for greatness. Some of the most significant example of Santiago choosing to go for his personal legend, rather than settling down somewhere is his decision to continue his journey and to go on and join the caravan when he could have made a very comfortable living for himself
at the crystal merchant’s shop.
When Santiago was just a shepherd (and even before that), He had always wanted to travel and to see the world.
One day, after years of being a shepherd, Santiago was given an opportunity to go on an adventure. It is an extremely difficult choice to make for Santiago, because going on such an adventure would tear apart the fabric of Santiago’s life, because up until now he has only known this life of herding his sheep, and selling their wool. The reason this makes it a difficult decision for Santiago to make is that this life with his sheep taught him to love stability, and fear change. Nothing ever changed for him in the andalusian hills, after all. But he chose to “go big” as it were, and to achieve his dreams of travel, along with the promise of
treasure.
Later on in the story, just after getting his money stolen, Santiago encounters a crystal salesmen who allows Santiago to work under him. In the end, Santiago actually makes changes to the crystal shop, and allows it to grow and expand very quickly over his year spent there. In Santiago’s time spent working with the crystal merchant, he earns enough money to go back to the hills of andalusia, his home, and take up the shepherd’s crook once more with a flock several times the size. However, after a discussion with the crystal merchant, in which he told Santiago of his dream, and that he will never achieve it, Santiago is inspired to go onward on his adventure, even though he is scared, not only of the desert, or the long journey, but of the change that come with it. Santiago was terrified of his life changing hugely once again, this time never to return to normal, but he musters up his courage, and takes the leap regardless.