"This is an important book, but it is really irritating. It is a book that says the same thing that almost all other books in the world say...It describes people's inability to choose their own Personal Legends. And it ends up saying that everyone believes the world's biggest lie." The boy inquires, of course, about what the world's biggest lie is, and the old man responds thusly: It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie."
It is an easy lie to believe. Whether it is things we do, or circumstances completely exigent to our own doings, events occur in life that might lead us to put our faith into this great myth and distortion. The Calvinists read Genesis 3 and determine that man's fate is not his own, and that he is doomed to evil or pre-ordiained for good, but it is beyond his control. As a recovering Calvinist, it is easy to revert back to this, because it is easy. It is always easy to say that our situation is beyond our control. In fact, it is perhaps the most convenient way to eschew our responsibility for our own circumstances. There are many secular determinists who take similar positions concerning life. Fatalists, even more extreme, believe that life is not only beyond our control, but that its consequences are the province of Chaos, and not even some sort of order.
This week, in hindsight, has been a tremendous lesson for me in how this lie seems to make its way back into our lives even when we have actively renounced it. External forces, in the span of only a few days, brought to bear some of the most wretched blows that life has thus far ever dealt me.
(Below is a further quotation from The Alchemist)
"The boy didn't know what a person's 'Personal Legend' was. 'It's what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend...It's a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your Personal Legend. It prepares your spirit and your will, because there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth...The Soul of the World is nourished by people's happiness. And also by unhappiness, envy, and jealousy. To realize one's Personal Legend is a person's only real obligation. All things are one. And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."
One's Personal Legend isn't just a vocational question; it isn't just a personal question; it's the singular matter that encompasses a person's entire life. And it seemed to me this week that the forces of the world were conspiring against me, not for me, but that is part of the world's greatest lie, and perhaps that is how the world's greatest lie infiltrates our outlook on the world. It begins by telling us that everything and everybody are against us. Once we believe that, it's not much more of a step to believe that if everything and everybody are against us, that we have lost control of what is going on and that we are bound now by the dictates of fate.
As soon as we believe that, our dreams of achieving our Personal Legend soon become only wishes, and wishes aren't as tangible as dreams. The wishes then become memories, and the memories eventually become faint recollections. That is how the World's Greatest Lie robs us of our Personal Legend: it erodes our vision of it slowly over time.
I also think that the World's Greatest Lie can get us by coming at us from a different direction. The World's Greatest Lie can divert our focus from achieving our Personal Legend toward exacting revenge on those forces or people who we think stole our Personal Legend, or else stood in our way of achieving it. I have heard it said somewhere that "You can't get ahead while you're getting even." I think this concept is understood more fully in the context of the Apostle Paul's comments in his first letter to the church at Corinth, where he says that "Love is patient and kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude or self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." And if we, as we are commanded, "Love one another," meaning all of mankind, then that is our proper M.O. concerning all human persons. I believe that absent this, we are easily and quickly distracted from pursuing our Personal Legends.
The litigious nature of American culture is perhaps a perfect example of this. Billions of dollars are spent every year on attorneys and court costs to exact revenge against people for wrongs they have committed, even if nothing will really be recovered except perhaps extracting "a pound of flesh." This is vanity.
I know that I am not alone, though, in feeling like I have been distracted from my Personal Legend by the World's Greatest Lie. I have friends who are in still in college and graduate school. I hear from them all time about the nervousness and apprehension that characterizes their grades after the semester is completed. They lament that their entire future rests upon these grades, and that once those grades are entered into the University's database, it is the ultimate determination of their success and achievement in life.
Others, perhaps, have pursued some sort of position or political office. I have seen people in pursuit of such things buy into the World's Greatest Lie: they feel like a defeat is the final quashing of their goals and dreams. Yet others are undeterred; they are resolute and strong, and assured that lessons are learned and some other purpose awaits then. These are the people who understand how to maintain their focus on achieving their Personal Legend. These are the people who understand Kipling's reference in his poem "If," where he says "If you can see the things you gave your life to, broken, and stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools."
Others still might feel that because their intimate relationships, whether with spouse, significant other, mother, father, brother, sister, or best friend, aren't exactly what they had envisioned or wanted at a certain point in their life, they feel like things have spiraled out of their control. After all, the trouble exists in the other person, not in themselves. This is yet another manifestation of the World's Greatest Lie.
I could continue with examples, but I think the point is the universality of the Personal Legend and the World's Greatest Lie. We truly are in control of our own destiny. We truly have power to transcend all of the external factors that seem to be roadblocks to achieving what we want most in life. The roadblocks are not genuine barriers to our achievement, but rather I believe they are mile-markers that tell us where we are on the map and point us in the direction we should go. There are not barriers to achieving our Personal Legend, except of course the World's Greatest Lie. Even things that have a negative connotation in our view have a purpose. I think this is why King Solomon penned the following words in Ecclesiastes:
"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace."
One of the lessons from The Alchemist, though, is that one's Personal Legend is never achieved by merely wishing it. It takes unceasing effort, tireless dedication, and it necessitates that one never stop dreaming. Longfellow understood this, I think. The following is a poem he wrote entitled "A Psalm of Life."
TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant !
Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Act,— act in the living Present !
Heart within, and God o'erhead !
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Learning to labor and wait is what pursuing our Personal Legend is all about. Kipling put it in a slightly different way, "If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting" and "If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run."
Anything less than our Personal Legend is inadequate. Everything that takes us away from its achievement should be shunned. I believe that a laser focus on the pursuit and achievement of our Personal Legend will result in happiness, since the pursuit of that which we want most is a path that is in and of itself rewarding and fulfilling. If we ever find ourselves pursuing something else, the path will be winding and wearisome, and if we ever find ourselves pursuing nothing at all, then our lives will cease to lose their meaning. But when we are on that fulfilling path that leads to our Personal Legend, then the Universe is conspiring in our favor, and we cannot be deterred, delayed, or distracted. All of those around us will see our glow, our purpose, and will find meaning in merely be in our presence.
Can you imagine what life would be like if we were all pursuing our Personal Legends?
1 comment:
If ever there was an amendment or cliff notes to The Alchemist, If, and The Psalm of Life... that would be it my friend. So keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming you...
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