“The alchemists spent years in their laboratories, observing the fire that purified the metals. They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world. They discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves.”
-“The Alchemist” by Paulo Coehlo
“The Alchemist” by Paulo Coehlo is a phenomenal book which I highly recommend (it has been featured on our Weekly Media Recommendation section). It is layered with tons of wisdom and knowledge concealed through a fun story line. One of the least focused on points the book makes which I personally found to be the most important was the lesson I learned from the quote above.
A bit of background, in the book there were people known as Alchemists that understood the secrets of the universe and the “unspoken language of the world.” They used this knowledge to perform miracles like becoming wind or turning lead into gold.
The quote above basically says that by putting patience, hard work, and dedication into heating up the lead to the point where it would purify and turn to gold, they ended up purifying themselves as well. The gold wasn’t the real prize here, the process helped the alchemist purify and improve themselves . The gold was worthless to the wise alchemists who gave up such vanities (thank god for that, because if they didn’t gold would be completely worthless), they did it for spiritual gain.
It’s not easy to better yourself. I could feel that I’m acting lazy but I can’t just snap my fingers and stop being lazy, because I’m not a machine. I have to work on myself which is easier said then done. What I took away from all this is that in order to better yourself, you have to better the things around you and the things you do.
Actions speak louder than words. If you want to become a better person and improve yourself thenn you have to start with the little things. When it comes to ditching a bad habit like laziness, start small. If you’re having a conversation, even if it’s a boring one, give it your full attention. When you’re doing a friend a favor, don’t do the bare minimum, do the best job possible! Slowly, you will find that by putting effort in small seemingly unimportant tasks you’ll start doing it more where it counts.
It’s little things like this that will help you improve yourself. Put more effort into the little things in life and you’ll get more out of it.