You are now known as “the magician of words”. Why your debut was at the age of forty? What was the incident that motivated you?
It’s true, it took me almost 40 years for me to become a writer. Before that I always dreamt of becoming a writer, but I never dared to take the necessary steps.
I did the pilgrimage to Santiago in 1986 but met my master in Amsterdam in 1982. He told me things back then that enabled my soul to slowly awaken and it was through a series of rituals that I was able, four years later, to embark on my pilgrimage.
Yet, it was only during my pilgrimage that it became increasingly apparent that I wasn’t happy and I had to do something about it – stop making excuses. I realized that you don’t have jump through a series of complicated hoops to achieve a goal. You can just look at a mountain and get a connection with God, you don’t have to understand the mountain to feel that.
When I first got back from the trip it was an anti-climax. I found it hard to acclimatize to my normal life and I was impatient to change my life immediately. But changes happen when you’re ready. It took a few months to realize that I must solely concentrate on writing a book, rather than trying to fill various roles as I had before. The pilgrimage was to be my subject and as I started I took my first step towards my dream.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
“When I first got back from the trip it was an anti-climax. I found it hard to acclimatize to my normal life and I was impatient to change my life immediately. But changes happen when you’re ready.”
This so me!!!
Just after a trip a recently did.
“But changes happen when you’re ready.”
So very true. My prayer each day is to continue to open to life and love so that I may be ready for all it has for me. I'm 34 now. There's a book in my soul. I know it. Funny, because the Camino has been calling me for a few years now and I don't even know why. Perhaps there will be a parallel awakening to yours Paulo and I'll have my first book out before I'm 40. One can never quite tell what will happen next in this life.
Dear Paulo,
I cannot tell you what these words mean to me – especially just now, at this precise point in my life.
Thank you!
Sincerely,
Savita
A very interesting and heartfelt answer, I liked it very much, especially the “Changes happen when we are ready” part, which is so true and yet so difficult to understand, as we, people, want everything to happen in an instant, forgetting that even for a plant to grow, it is necessary more than an instant, it takes some time, patience, nourishment, love, lots of lessons for us to learn…
A question popped up in my mind spontaneously and this is the same question I use in introspection: “Are you really happy now, dear, are you on the right track, doing things that fulfill you, are you fulfilling your destiny?” Our hearts know the answer all the time, only the mind tries to deceive us sometimes. In fact, there is no need to answer with words, just with feelings. I remember that before having a real spiritual life, the Spirit inside me felt so tired of this so-called struggle I had with the world, outside. Everything is in fact inside, the Light waits for us to identify with it. Only when we become the Light, we feel really free, fulfilling our destinies and complete free, I know that, I feel that very well! :-)
Lots of hugs and appreciation,
Carmen Larisa
I think it’s a right time for everything, we cannot force things to happen
We only have to wait and in the mean time to learn and listen, and to give our attention to signs
It is written that our life has periods containing 14 years; this is also the period of time of renewing our cells. When you are 40 you are very close to changing youth to maturity, so I think it’s a very good time of starting to write.
Paulo, thank you for all of your books!!!!!!!!
With all my love
I think thats the answer to all things we want to do or desire to do -whether dreams or just ideas -we must stop making excuses and just do it ..then u push throw the blocks and start to see the light at the end of the tunnel .I read somewhere that if u make an excuse for anything then u are blocked in that area -whether its exercise or meditation -or work ..so its good to see it like that -and gives us some insight into why we make excuses for what we want to do .Blessings Tania
Mi estimado Sr. Coehlo permitame presentarle mis respetos, ante todo me cautiva su creativa escritura, tal cual todos los que se dirigen a ud un dia escribire tambien mi libro…pero no es eso lo que quiero plantearle aca, ese es uno de los sueños pendientes de mi vida… mi deseo ademas de leer toda su obra…ya llevo 6 de ellas…es conocerlo y tener con ud una hermosa charla de la vida. Es que me firme mis libros y es tomarme una serie de fotografias con ud…es uno de mis sueños el conocerle personalmente. Lo admiro mucho supongo que recibe de estos correos a diario…pero para mi el maestro aparece cuando el alumno esta listo.
Dios le de bendiciones
su admiradora
I am 22 and hope I do not have to wait 18 more years – although if that is way it plays out, then so be it.
At the age of 48, I felt I was supposed to be there in Spain, walking on El Camino, but the window of opportunity closed before I was able to go. This year, at age 50, I made arrangements, but had to back out of them due to physical problems that came up. I see myself there, in my mind, and I know that I will be there when it is the right time for me. The thing I have the most difficulty remembering is that things don’t always happen when I think they should happen…they happen when it is the right time to happen, and not one moment sooner (at least, that’s been my experience).
I like that you told yourself to “stop making excuses.” Sometimes that’s exactly what it comes down to. Just stop making excuses and take one step, see where it leads you. When I make that decision to stop looking at all the reasons I should remain a victim of my own negative-speak and then take that first step beyond the criticism and self-doubt, I begin to feel strength and courage again. I also have a sense of cogs slipping into place and the machinery beginning to move again. Sort of an odd way to describe it, but that’s what it feels like, in a sense.
Anyway, there are no coincidences and again, this is exactly what I needed to read today. Thank you!
Dear Paulo Coelho, I liked you saying ‘I was impatient to change my life immediately’, so very Virgo! ‘But changes happen when we are ready’.
You are also, very lucky for having a sensitive, loving wife being near you and understanding you. I thank her too for your books. She deserves it.
LOVE,
THELMA
“But changes happen when you’re ready.”
So very true. My prayer each day is to continue to open to life and love so that I may be ready for all it has for me. I’m 34 now. There’s a book in my soul. I know it. Funny, because the Camino has been calling me for a few years now and I don’t even know why. Perhaps there will be a parallel awakening to yours Paulo and I’ll have my first book out before I’m 40. One can never quite tell what will happen next in this life.
i just wrote this on my desktop large enough for it to be the only thing i see when i first open my computer. i wanted to share it with you, THANK YOU.
Today, also Nov 4 2008, and also the US presidential elections day between Obama and Mccain, i go onto, for the first time, Paulo Coelho’s site and blog. i have know something like this was available online for a long time now, but apparently wasnt willing or ready to discover it. i finished reading Brida last night. the first book i have read completely in over a year or longer… i am from US but living in Argentina and saw that PC had this new book. i had it fed ex’d to me here- which meant i had to take a taxi to the airport an hour away, wait in lines back and forth thru customs for 2 hours to receive it and then the hour return home. i just had to have it i felt… i know this is not “entirely” true, but i now feel as though this book was written for me, specifically for me, to read NOW, at this time and place in my life- every single possible aspect of it’s messages i relate too and hope i heard. so today, you spoke to me and i listened. I am ready and am present. so here i am… on this site finally, reading this blog… and today, i decide, it is possible for me to become a writer. That it is possible and may be even necessary for me to discover my own path through writing. That writing MAY be part of that path… maybe not, but i will consider it, once again- a greatly veiled, old and discarded dream… and see where it takes me… thank you.