Paulo Coelho

Stories & Reflections

Inner struggles

Author: Paulo Coelho

I am always struggling with myself, but I am very optimistic in this sense.
People are realizing more and more that happiness is freedom, and freedom is to be able to “travel light”, not possessing a lot of things, because at the end of the day, the things start to possess you.
I remember that I considered to buy a castle here in France: I went to see some.
One day I realized that if I buy a castle, I cannot think about anything but taking care of it. Therefore, I bought a small watermill, so to keep it is very easy, and I have time to go to the mountains, to walk, do spend my life in the way that I would like. In short: the less you have to keep, the more you have in freedom.

If I look back at my life I see many occasions where society tried to make me conform to “normality”. This resulted in three hospitalizations in an asylum when I was a teenager (which I describe in my book Veronika decides to die), torture when I was a young adult by the hands of the paramilitaries, and many defeats.
You could look at these experiences and say “Paulo’s life is tragic” but I don’t see it that way.
What I do see is someone trying to remain true to oneself. Yes there is a price but I believe that life tends to be very generous to those that are brave enough to take these risks.
In a word, I’ve always had faith in life, even when I thought “God forgot me”.
Be happy with your contradictions.

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