The Alchemist

I have heard a lot about this book which is an international bestseller. Frankly I thought I would not like it (alchemy is not my thing) that is why I did not read it until now. But since many people encourage me to read it, I finally did.  
The book tells the story of Santiago, a young shepherd from Andalucia who wants to pursue his dream of finding a treasure and travels to Egypt. It was written by Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian author in 1988. The novel describes the whole journey of Santiago and his encounters with different people who teach him lessons along the way. 
In my opinion the book is amazing, easy to read and gives you a lot of tips how to embrace life in a simple way. Some of my favorite phrases of the book I would like to remark are: “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure” , “The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them”, “The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times” and “It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting”. People try to find their destiny all the time, it is like an endless search. Maybe it is wrong to think that we will be happier when we discover it, since we can be happy the whole time we are searching for it. Have you found your destiny?  Do you think you ever will? 
Nevertheless I think it is essential to have dreams to pursue, it is the motor of life. Human being needs projects and dreams in the future horizon in order to keep moving forward. Imagine how our lives would be without dreams, we would be like machines, just doing what we have to do everyday and fulfill our biological necessities. I think dreams are the fuel for our soul. I would rather be a happy dreamer than a person too much down to earth.
Although it is a little pessimist I do not agree with this phrase of the book: "when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”. Many times in my life I did almost the impossible to achieve what I want and many times it was not enough. Life is not a movie nor a book, the universe has more important things to do than helping me (us) apparently. It is a romantic exaggeration, almost mean: follow your dreams and they will come true...Don't you think? 
Hopefully we will enjoy and learn all through the way and at the end of our lives we will be wiser and discover which was actually our destiny. One thing is for sure, you will feel better if you follow your dreams and make it your path through life.