I am am reading Manuscript from Accra for the fourth time already. This is one of the books of the great philosopher Paulo Coelho. After reading his books you actually feel like a better person. Or at least you know you can become. He has a talent to inspire. He writes stories that need to be passed because these life lessons are what we need to find ourselves and to learn our values. It is a wonderful book that inspires and the hidden message makes the book worth reading. It is a story that will give you confidence in what life has to offer. Dare to live, go find your dreams, develop yourself, the world is yours. Today I will share one of my favorite chapters.

Paulo Coelho – Manuscript from Accra

“I want to see everything and everyone like I see them for the first time – especially the little things, to which I’m used to, and of which I have forgotten the magic that surrounds them. For example the dunes in the desert who move with an energy that I don’t understand, because I can’t see the wind. I will touch a shirt that I usually wear, and for the first time, I will pay attention to the way it is made. I think of the hands that wove the fabric, on the river where the fibers of the plant originated. I will understand that all those unseen things now are part of the history of my shirt. And even the stuff that I’m used to, as my sandals which, after prolonged use, feel like an extension of my feet – I want to reupholstery with the mystery of the discovery. Because my road to the future leads in them, they will serve me with the marks which have remained after my stumbles in the past.

Let my hands feel what my eyes see and my mouth tastes, different, even though it remains the same. I will try the tea which I never have drunk, because others said that it was not tasting good. I will walk through streets where I never before set foot, because they said there’s nothing interesting to find. I would like to find out if I would like to return there someday. If the sun is shining tomorrow, I will look to the sun as if see I see her for the first time. If it is cloudy tomorrow, I’ll follow the clouds and watch them move. I always find that I do not have time to pay attention to that. But tomorrow I’m focusing on where the clouds will float, or on the sun rays and the shadows that they cause.

Fun is not a sin, and therefore I will laugh without guilt for the first time. Suffering is no virtue, and so I will let go of all things hurting me. And I don’t want to complain about life by saying: it’s all rubble, I can’t change anything. Because I will experience this day as if it was my first, and gradually I’ll discover things which I never knew that they were there. Let me look at myself as if it was the first time that I am in touch with my own body and soul. Let me accept myself as I am. Someone who runs, feels, speaks like any other person, but has –despite his mistakes– courage.

I let myself be surprised by the normal things I do, like the ability to have a chat with a stranger, and amaze myself about what I most often feel – like the pricks in my face when the wind blows from Baghdad while carrying sand. Let me be amazed about the tender moments, such as when I watch my wife sleeping and try to imagine what she is dreaming. And if I lay in bed, I will get up and walk to the window, look up to heaven and make sure that loneliness is a lie: the universe is always with me.

And even if this will be my last day on Earth, I will be there as intense as possible, enjoy it, because I want to enjoy this day with the innocence of a child, as if I do everything for the first time.”