40% of the emails that I receive come from people that say that they had to renounce their dream for love.
Personally, I don’t think love can make a person stray from his/her personal legend.
What do you think?
Love
Paulo
Can love make a person stray from his/her personal legend?
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Dear Pauol,
Recently I had a talk with my friend, he said love is complete when we feel the same urge from both side. A complete love can produce miracle and energy for life. Please let me know your openion.
Regards,
Deepa Rani
i do not think that love requires giving up on ones dreams. quite the contrary. love, i find, fuels the dream. if love ever asks that you forsake your heart’s desire, your purpose, look closer… it may not be love but something grasping and selfish. love knows its own strengths. love does not ask for what love is not willing to give.
Dearest Paulo and friends
Main question here is, will you ever truely end up happy renouncing your dreams for love? Everyone is different, and everyone’s life has put them in different yet difficult situations. I think that many people also love with the condition that their loved one is with them, and so they don’t have the freedom to go for their dreams, and then feel they have to choose between the two. I know people who were content at the end of their lives because they had chosen love, while others regret having chosen love or their dreams. It all depends on you, and wht makes you happy. If you are on content- than find a way to change things. Find a way to get what you want- because their ways is one. God never gives you a dream without the power for it to come true.
Many people, when they are young, who fall in love for the first time, will give up everything for love. They will be determined to make it the most important part of their lives, and in doing so will renounce everything, including their dreams, in the name of love. From personal experience, i’ve seen what it can do to someone. Later in life, they look at who they have become and begin to regret being so implusive. A very close friend of mine had renounced her dreams for love, and she ended up hating the man she once loved for it. She’s a real fighter though, and through alot of turmoil she has gotten back into the field she’d always desired. She’s a remarkable human being whose strength, courage and determination to go for her dream (even after 20 years), i will always admire. You see, its never too late to go for a dream. AS long as your eyes open in the morning, you are given a second chance to go for it.
As for myself, i have experienced an incredible love, but i know inside of me, that i will never be happy with my life if i did not go for my personal legend. I could love him my entire life, but i don’t love him on the condition he is with me. He’s not with me, and i honestly don’t know if he ever will be, but i do know that because i am following my dream, i will be happy- because what i will be doing everyday is what i love to do, it is something that i was born with apart of me. There was a point in my life, where i realised i could not get into medicine- basically because i had changed all my applications after i came to the conclusion that i might get AIDS and die. Anyway, i will always remember how i felt. I didn’t put an effort in pretty much anything anymore, and i felt kind of useless- bored with my life. Then i got sick, nothing serious, but when i saw the doctor i almost had a heart attack because i realised how much a wanted to be a doctor. I’l never forgot, staring at my dream in the face and knowing i was not going to get there. I came home and told my parents, i sent letters to all the universities, and i managed to get into to the one i orginally wanted. By the time i’d gotten accepted, i was so adament about my dream, i refused to think of myself in any other way. I realised then the universe really does conspire to get you want you want. i read the alchemist just after my realisation, and i suppose thats why i’l always have a special place in my heart for it. It did me a world of good and couldn’t have come at a better time in my life.
In a way we both gave up on love for our dreams- because we both know we will never be happy without persuing them. From where i stand, i have no regrets. I did not chose my dream over him or him over my dream. I chose them both. I will continue to love him, as i continue to strive for my dreams.
Thank you for being
Yajna
Dear Paulo
Love is the single most important thing. If we hold true to love, then all dreams will follow as surely as a stream of water finds its way to the sea. The one flows through with the other, timelessly.
Much love and thanks for your words, as ever …
Yes, Eros does that all the time! But how do you tell them apart when you feel both for the same person, and then which way do you go? I am living this dilemma, struggling with ‘what is right” (in the truest sense of the word), as opposed to what I might ‘want’, in a profound erotic way that I confess feels archetypal in itself… Sometimes, re-enacting the drama feels as true as anything else.
I confess, I have never truly understood Agape – I guess I think it is unattached, selfless, beyond form and time, and for me, anyway, always fleeting, mitigated by all the negative reactions that get in the way. I will have to go back to C.S. Lewis on love….
I think the love for your dreams has to be strong enough before you can allow yourself to completely love another in order to follow your own path. But if it’s meant to be, you will meet someone whose path can mingle with yours throughout your time together. It is only in the constant refusal to see your lover as a possession where true love can be expressed; not in the binding of souls, but in the ability to always set them free.
Eu condordo plenamente com você. E tenho a sensação que as pessoas confundem paixão e amor todo o tempo. Pra mim, é fundamental que a pessoa se ame e se compreenda pra amar verdadeiramente o outro. Sei que isso parece nanal e senso comum mas há uma grande diferença entre o que as pessoas dizem e o que fazem. O amor é realista. Ele vê a pesso como ela é. E ainda sim acredita que o olado bom da pessoa é maior e mais importante que seus defeito. O que não significa que não os veja. Diferente da paixão que é cega. O amor é calmo. E maduro. Sabe impor limites. Pois todos os envolvidos têm que crescer com ele. Não acredito em “amores” que exijam anulação de alguma das partes. Abraço. Seus livros me tocam. Quem sabe um dia ainda cruzamos por ai. (acho difícil)
I think when we are young and find ourselves “in love” for the first time, we will give everything up for it. Some of us become jaded when that love is not returned in kind. Then it is through our lifes lessons and learning that it is love of self that gives us the drive to follow our dreams. In doing so we open ourselves up to allow love to be returned and the ability to accept it as the simple gift it is as opposed to what we think it should be. I don’t believe love would deny us our dreams. It is love that brings our dreams to fruition. To those who have had to “renounce their dream for love” I say: there is more to come. Just like love, I don’t believe dreams can be denied.
I sense that the heart knows a person’s dream (or purpose?) before the rational mind does. So, maybe if *a* dream is at some point consciously created or intellectually realised, the heart will still tug and lead us in another less selfish direction, making it seem like a ‘sacrifice’ or like ‘renouncing the (conscious) dream/love’? In my experience we are never on a wrong track if love is the motivation, and we view our lives as one with multiple choices. It is when we resist love (well-being, appreciation, interest, excitement, hope, joy) we are lost. Love is everywhere we are, because it comes from the Source within, the heart and soul.
Eros will blind you from finding the truth but agape will lead you there. Eros of self as well as of self-fulfillment can lead you astray – but agape will sacrifice the ego for truth.
“Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil: Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth: Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never falleth away: whether prophecies shall be made void or tongues shall cease or knowledge shall be destroyed.” 1 Cor. Chapter 13
I do nоt think that for the sake of love refuse, more often you do something for love. It seems to me of such people it is necessary to ask, what dreams at them were? And whether these dreams were so important for them, what they could refuse them? It seems to me that such people search to themselves for the justification and simply do not wish to look to the truth in eyes, that their desire to carry out dream was not so strong. In fact only when we reach that that we want so strongly that can refuse all rest, we become.
I hope that though something clearly. I have a problem with english =(((((
I think Eros could make a person stray from her/his personal legend… not Agape.
Do you agree?
Not at all. If people meet true love, they will think about the whole universe and themselves deeply. To me, love, Paulo’s books, dream of childhood, adventure, universe, eternity (and or maybe god)are the same word. Personally I believe buddhism though. If it is okay, I want to ask you, Mr. Paulo, about boredom. Are you never bored or sometimes bored? …….. you are someone who made their dream come true. Sounds strange but are you happy?
Dear Paulo,
I totally agree with you- love can’t make a person stray from his/ her personal legend, from his/ her dream. Instead, love will give you the strength to follow this path- no matter how hard it might be. Love can certainly give you wings.
But – maybe even more important- true love won’t ask you to leave your path, to quit doing what you have to do.
You might lose love and still have your dreams. But if you lose your dreams, what else is there left to lose?
Love,
Catrin
Yo creo que el amor es importante, pero si va a hacerte infeliz porque quizá tengas tus sueños al alcance de la mano y optes por no cumplirlos por conservar el amor…
No me he visto en la situación, pero creo que la gente debe evolucionar hacia sus metas.
When you love someone you want to do everything in your power to make that person happy, because you’re afraid of losing that person if you don’t. Love has no rules, love is love and it can hurt, you don’t always understand it and is most of the time confusing. But it’s only confusing if you’re not completely open to it. And if you love a person, and that person loves you back. You must be open for eachothers dreams. You might want to protect eachother but as I said Love has no rules. You just love.
If you both understand that than there is no reason to let the one you love follow their dream. Or to follow your own. As long as you love.
DEAR PAULO THANKS FOR YOUR ANSWER TO ME. YOU MAKE ME HAPPY…I THINK THAT THE ILLUSION OF LOVE CAN MAKE RENOUNCE OUR DREAMS, MANY PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT WAS LEGITIMATE LEAVE HIS PERSONAL LEGEND IN THE NAME OF LOVE. BUT WHAT’S LOVE IS THIS? THE TRUTH IS THAT IS DIFFICULT TO FIND REAL LOVE AND OURSELFES DOES’NT KNOW IT, DOES’NT FIND IT AND CONTENTED HISSELF…SORRY FOR MY ENGLISH I AM FROM ROMA, IN THIS MOMENT FROM “PROMOTORIO DEL CIRCEO…DO YOU KNOW “MAGA CIRCE”? LOVE KAREN
A maior renúncia é renunciar ao próprio amor, quando ainda o amas.
Por amor, daquele, do verdadeiro, eu seria capaz de renunciar a tudo.
Mas o Amor Verdadeiro raramente nos pede que renunciemos, pois acompanha os nossos sonhos!
Beijos Paulo.
I think universal love that doesn’t come from one’s egos,limited beliefs, or fears support dreams and could create win-win situation or even open up many doors for many people, even if it could create conflict in a process.
Love,
This is interesting. Unconditional, all-accepting love between individuals allows each of them to follow their dreams…it wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, the truest love thrives on the other person’s struggles and successes as they learn to trust, let go, and follow their path. This is true of love between a parent and child, friends, and lovers. I have spent much of my life thinking I was in love (the romantic kind) and setting aside my dream because it interferred with the dreams of the men in my life. It wasn’t really love after all, and had I known then what I know now, I could have used this as the test. On the other hand, I may have had a fear of following my dream and gave it up too easily. Now I’m single, 46 years old, and finally following my dream to write.I’m inspired to write and no longer have any fear of success. My fist book is about a man from Chile who came to Canada looking for freedom (running from a life of poverty, alcoholism, incest, rape.) It’s a story about love and dreams. No one who really loves you would ever ask you to renounce your dream for love, and likewise, you should never consider asking this of yourself.
10 years ago, I figured out what I needed to to with my life (partly thanks to “the Alchemist”). At that time, I met someone who has been cruel and kind, difficult and challenging, who has caused much pain as a result of their own illness. As the buddhists say, a ‘diamond in the road’ so my own soul can grow. This love has persisted and has evolved in ways that few understand (including myself!). I consider the difficulty of love to be something that facilitates the pursuit of a dream.
Dream your dream with love… and you won’t need to give up anything…
Cheers
totally agree with you paulo, one cannot stray as love is nourishes the personal legend.
Na concretização da sua lenda pessoal, cada um deve fazer o que ama e perseguir esse amor. Pode ser uma pessoa, uma missão, um desejo ou um sonho.
Outros amores são apenas distrações que alguém lá de Cima te põe no caminho para ver se não te esqueces do que te leva em frente.
Saudaçõs*
If you believe that love will make your dreams come true – then love can also make you stray from your personal legend.
But if you keep your dreams in your head and love in your heart I trust both will soar and perhaps heaven will come to you on earth.
Creo que se confunde el trabajo con tu sueño. El uno lo puedes conseguir en cualquier lugar, el otro es parte integral de ti donde quiera que vayas. El amor complementa tu sueño, y por tanto no debe existir conflicto de intereses.
Se dice que debes conseguirte un trabajo que ames hacer, y así no trabajaras el resto de tu vida, así también en tu vida amorosa la persona que aceptes por compañera te acompañara en tus sueños como tu en los de ella/el, doquiera que estos les lleven.
Somos nosotros los que hacemos la distinción de que tanto damos para mantener la relación, muchas veces la otra persona se asombra de lo que consideramos hemos sacrificado, cuando ni siquiera fue pedido.
La edad es un factor en esa distinción ya que en nuestros años formativos damos un valor mas grande a la pareja que a nuestros sueños… pensando que los dos son uno… la vida te enseña luego que son complementarios, no excluyentes.
O Amor é o maior presente que recebemos de Deus.
Todo o movimento desse sonho primeiro foi de Deus.
Viver nosso sonho é realizar a vontade de Deus; mas negar seria pecado.
Muitos beijos,
Mari Raphael.
Ps. Achei muito bacana o comentário da Rosa dos Ventos
maybe you don’t think so because it is your love that strayed from her/his dream? (i don’t know – just a thought).
honestly, i don’t think very much about love… just needs. i think heaven might be a place where there are no needs… (but here i am straying).
i’m also not so sure about “personal legend”. have i become cynical/resigned/tired? i don’t know… i just don’t have a strong urge for anything at the moment… maybe just sleep.
i believe, though, that Love directs us in our steps. and in that way supports us on our personal legend path – that being the path that we take which is the only path that we were meant to take. i don’t think love detracts… more like it forces people to choose, make decisions, take risks… that’s what makes it difficult. so in fact, perhaps, those people who wrote to you, followed their personal legend at the point of choice, but then later took a double-take and decided maybe it wasn’t really their personal legend because it didn’t turn out the way they wished, or that they imagine the other path to be more exciting/whatever.
I think love is an integral part of one’s dreams, if you have to give up your dream in order to find or keep love then I don’t believe that you have found true love. Love does not stop you from realising your dream, only you can prevent yourself from having both love and fulfilling your personal destiny.
I cannot understand how could anybody renounce his/her dream for love.
In my opinion the problem is our miss understanding of what is love. In fact the mistake starts from trying to understand what love is..
I think there is only one thing/one love planted deep in each atom of the universe.
In trying to understand it and live it we start projecting it in what our senses can perceive! man, woman, mother, father, home, land, etc..
This projection is ok as long as we don’t substitute it for the true love.
We shouldn’t substitute a picture of the sea for the whole ocean..
We have simply to keep in mind that our projections are like a mirror that only reflect what we cannot see directly..
The perfect mirror is that which reflect the truth as good as possible.
Yes! I agree with you, Paulo. I, too, don’t think love can make a person stray from his personal legend. Hence, we don’t need to renounce love in exchange for the fulfillment of our dream. True love inspires and supports a person to achieve one’s dream. If not, it is not love at all…
Dear Pauol,
I’m from India, here I have one group and they are great fan of yours. We discussed about your book and thoughts often.
It’s my personal experience I would like to share with you. Recently I experienced love, a different kind, I didn’t meet him personally yet I feel I know from yrs and I was waiting for him, all my dreams I saw for him.
Well I have been loved before. But till I used to feel an emptiness inside my soul. Now I just feel filled, complete.
Regards,
Deepa Rani
I totally agree. love as work as everything is just a cheap excuse for not fighting. the only reason for not following the personal legend is the person itself when thinking I can’t make it.
Dear Paulo,
I think if we’re already heading in the right direction then that love has an óbligation’to realize the legend of both. But what about when the path is not so clear, if it’s all fuzzy? My grandmother used to say “fit finds fit” I like to think that we are drawn to the person who helps you find the path. Not sure if it’s true.
With Love
CHERYL
The mystery of the sacrifice must come to all; the engine has to burn some fuel in order to move the vehicle forward.
The one who realizes that all that ever was, was necessary, will find himself, harmony and beauty.
And he will make Love his only guide.
I think love and dreams go hand in hand and you can’t separate one from the other.If you don’t love your life,people around you,your work,then you can never fulfill your dreams.And if you don’t have dreams,love in any form,has no meaning,it can never give you any real satisfaction or happiness.
I think when you learn to dance like Athena did, when you learn to position yourself in the eye of storm, focusing at the present, becoming one with the present, your love, dreams or whatever touches your life just start swirling around you.
As long as we are eccentric from the centre of the storm of our lives, we would continue to be torn apart between different aspects of our life. There should not be a friction between our choices. Sometimes we assume more control on our choices than we actually have. I feel this is what gets us into trouble. I always take a step back at that point with a deep breathe and let my life take decisions for me. 100% of the time it makes the best choice at the most perfect time. When you let go some control of your life, God presents the best opportunities in front of you. You need to be just focused enough on your present that you are able to identify these opportunities. Later they become your dreams and your love.
Does ‘THE dream’ equal to ‘the call of your life’?
If so, you can’t renounce it. Doesn’t matter what you use to take yourself away from that path, it will always come back. No matter how long it takes, how much pain it costs.
Another question:
What’s the quality of the love that have you renounce your DREAM?
Can one honestly love another entity without fully respect and embrace oneself? Is the same decision – renoucing the DREAM for love – expected from the beloved? This is LOVE?
But these people are blessed. They saw their own DREAM. For many of us go through life half asleep following other people’s dreams…Who is better off?
I really think that dreams and love are compatible. If you have a doubt about one or another it is because they could not be really strong. Also I am sure that dreams can add value to love and love can better support the dreams.
Nowadays there are a lot of questions about dual career, etc, but personally I believe that the happiness (that it is the combination of dreams and love) is far beyond this.
Tudo que se possa imaginar e “sentir como se já fosse” é possível de ser realizado, ou melhor, fatalmente se concretizará. Amor, sonhos, carreira, familia, qualquer coisa. Só o que precisamos é manter a consciencia de que o mundo é apenas um campo onde plantamos nossas sensações e colhemos situações de vida que irão reproduzir em nós as mesmas sensações que plantamos em pensamento.
O problema é que é muito difícil manter-se na consciencia.
Acho seus ensinamentos importantes nesse sentido, pois meditar é uma forma de parar de plantar o que não queremos e dar espaço para nossos sonhos se tornarem reais. Isso deve se tornar um hábito.
Aprender a estar consciente é como aprender qualquer outra coisa, exige dedicação, perseverança , determinação e diciplina. Ninguém aprende a tocar violão de um dia para o outro, assim também é com a consciencia.
Continuo no meu aprendizado e as respostas são imediatas. Hoje concilio amor e sonhos e isso é uma delícia!
Obrigada por sua luz Paulo.
dear Paulo, if a person renounce to his dream(s) for love, someday that love will end for this reason, ’cause if u do something for love it’s not a renounce.
P.S.: thanks for your works!
People think that they have to choose, between the two things that would make them happy..
and we have this fantasy, that we can never have it all..we have to give something up, to follow our dreams. Nothing is for free.
We are so convinced in the fantasy, and we forget that our reality is what we convince ourselves in, each and every day..
and so, yes, we- me included – are convinced we can’t have the two of them together
I´m a spanish girl who goes out with an italian boy.And I just hung out the phone with him talking about this argument.From my point of view all it depends on the situation,and its not a easy thing to take a decision that will change your live as you have always concerned that would be in your head.But if i must choose for doing a job or stay with the person I love.Definetly i choose the second one, because jobs we can find it all around but a person who spend yor life with is not easy.
But it´s true, that you just make this decision if you are in love and when you are in love you can not choose doing or not,its remains you one way stay with that person whatever and doing anything.Because if something is your dream you will find the way for make it real everywhere you are!!!Its depends on your intensity of whealing.
I´am so sorry about my english i hope you will understand what i want to say with this.
Hola a todos!!!
The last things one cand loose are the passion and hope, so renoncing to his dreams.
But even while we have no more hope for ourself, we can still help others, so loving others.
Aren’t the dream and the love one and the same? If they are not, then perhaps one or the other or maybe neither is real.
I think love is integral to a dream. If you renounce the dream, aren’t you renouncing love as well? Love should be a part of everything we do, as we interact with each other and seek our personal legend.
chehaw
La persona que ama debe intentar que el otro evolucione y cumpla sus sueños.
Particularmente como mujer apoyo al hombre con el que esté para que consiga sus grandes retos. Uno de los grandes retos de la pareja: apoyarse el uno al otro, crecer y hacer crecer.
Nunca se debe abandonar un sueño aunque tarde los sueños terminan realizándose.
Existe tambien el sacrificio del uno por el otro pero nunca se debe permitir que se detenga la evolución de cada cual.
Ojalá nunca se confunda el amor con la nulidad de la persona.
Un beso Paulo.
I have to go somewhere very special for a day in the first quarter of next year in another country. My girlfriends birthday is the very next day and I will be traveling home for her 25th, although I cannot wake up with her that day, she knows that I must follow my dreams, and to be a dreamer for all time.
Se pueden cinfundir leyenda personal, capricho y el camino que Dios nos tiene preparado
This question very much tangles the letter you got and published in MySpace about love…
spontaneously I think it is more “the lack of love” that force people to stray away from their dreams.
Parents who love their children want them to be happy, safe and to succeed, but even following a “common” path, success is never for sure and life is not safe.
The fear of “loosing” makes many a man and woman not even trying to fight… How many single mothers aren’t there who have succeeded in spite of a week which seemed too full to fit anything else than work and children?
Fear, not love.
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