The Alchemist

I just finished reading The Alchemist. It's a book about wisdom and realizing your destiny and learning how to be in tune to the things around you, which goes hand in hand with my previous post. On a quest in search of treasure, the shepard boy learns a great deal while traveling until he is finally brought back to the place where he began. His treasure was right under his nose the whole time but in order to see it properly, he first had to go away until he was ready to see it and understand it better.

This book reminded me a lot of The Little Prince, both which are in my top 5 favorite books of all time. I learn something new every time I read them. The problem with stories and movies, I realized, is that they don't properly depict time. Everything is sped up and I now realize that the abundance of books I have read have greatly deterred me from being able to understand and accept the patience of Time. Things that happen over a span of months or years, happen in the time it takes for me to read through it--a little too quickly and a little too unrealistically.

Both mentioned books are short but take place over a long period of time. In my world, they only last a few days and then the journey has ended and everyone is happier and wiser---well, everyone in the book, that is. What I should be doing is going at the pace of the book, at the real time, so I can better understand how these boys learn what they learn. In The Alchemist, the shepard stops in a town and decides to stay there for 3 months. Instead of reading it in 20 minutes, I should've stopped right there, put the book to the side and also lived 3 months with the knowledge that he works at a shop on a mountainside and I would know no more. Like the shepard, I would know of his past and present but not of his future. Then, time would not be rushed, it would be realistic and I would feel what it's like to not know what would happen next. Just like in my own life.

But unfortunately, I am a product of a society full of 'nows'. If you want something, you can get it instantly. There really isn't anything we have to wait for--we don't have to walk 10 miles before getting a drink of water, we don't really have to wait for a chicken to grown before we can eat it--we just drive to the market or turn on the faucet. I was just thinking about a package I was recently waiting for. It was supposed to be here within a week, but 2 weeks later, no package. I was agitated every day it wasn't here until I finally found out the delay was because they sorted it to the wrong post office. What would've become of me 200 years ago when I would've had to wait months to get something from across the U.S.?? I would've been a very angry frontierswoman.

These two traveling boys are my inspiration. They teach me to be more patient and to read the signs of the world. To know that you can't change the past nor the future but can only live in the now and be ready to recognize what it is you need to see. Everything happens for a reason and everything that happens is supposed to occur....

Time Wins Once Again

7 months ago I had a plan. I guess you could call it a resolution. It happened to fall at the start of the new year so lets call it a New Year's Resolution. I had a plan to be wiser. To be able to slow down and see what I don't see while rushing around my daily hectic life. That's why I wear a bracelet that says 'one day at a time'--yes, that is the AA motto but it also makes sense to someone like me who rushes 10 steps ahead instead of seeing what is happening NOW.

One of the things I did learn is that I don't know a thing. None of us really do. Every instance in time can be changed and altered by something else at a moment's notice. So, 7 months later as I think that I have become wiser and more aware, I fall 10 steps back to someone who is still unlearned. I realize my mistakes and how to do things differently but unfortunately old habits die hard and are hard to break.

I also learned that we have no control over any outcome. Time does though. Time and fate. I learned that where you think you're going is not usually where you end up. Things change and sometimes you see what's been in front of you all along. And yes, you should've seen it earlier because it was obvious as fuck, but Time knew you were not ready to see it yet. And that's one thing I haven't learned, one habit yet unbroken: Learning to have the patience for Time. Because Time takes time.

I don't make very many finalized decisions. I have to think it through until its old and withered and dead. I look at all the options, go through all the disasterous scenarios that could happen, gets people's opinions, compare all opinions, make a pro-con list, and when I'm ready then I make my decision. The problem with being so careful all the time is that sometimes it doesn't align with the rest of the universe. Sometimes I am too early, but more than often, I am too late. So I wait. But I'm not good with waiting because if I've made a decision that means I want it now (sometimes complete with foot stomping and pouting like a petulant child). And when I can't have it, I reflect and go over it all over again. So, the cycle continues. It's exhausting.

This realization has led me to know the only thing I do know now: I have not learned. I have not become wiser.

Without learning the patience for Time, then Time will always get the better of me. It will always win.