Paulo Coelho - Manuscript Found in Accra

Because that is what real success means: enriching your life, not cramming your coffers with gold.

A man might say: “I will use my money to sow, plant, harvest, and fill my granary with grain so that I will lack for nothing.” But when the Unwanted Visitor arrives, all the man’s efforts will have been in vain.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Do not try to make the road shorter, but travel it in such a way that every action leaves the land more fertile and the landscape more beautiful.

Do not try to be the Master of Time. If you pick the fruit you planted too early, it will be green and give pleasure to no one. If, out of fear or insecurity, you decide to put off the moment of making the Offering, the fruit will have rotted.

Therefore, respect the time between sowing and harvesting.

Then await the miracle of the transformation.

Until the wheat is in the oven, it cannot be called bread.

Until the words are spoken, they cannot be called a poem.

Until the threads are woven together by the hands of the person working them, they cannot be called cloth.

When the moment comes to show others your Offering, they will be amazed and will say to one another: “There is a successful man, because everyone wants the fruits of his labors.”

No one will ask what it cost to produce those fruits because anyone who does his work with love fills his creation with such intensity that it cannot be perceived by the eyes. Just as an acrobat flies easily through the air with no apparent effort, success, when it comes, seems the most natural thing in the world.

Meanwhile, if anyone did dare to ask, the answer would be: I considered giving up. I thought God was no longer listening to me, I often had to change direction, and, on other occasions, I lost my way. Despite everything, though, I found it again and carried on, because I was convinced there was no other way to live my life.

I learned which bridges should be crossed and which should be burned.

I am poet, farmer, artist, soldier, father, trader, seller, teacher, politician, sage, and someone who merely takes care of home and children.

I am aware that there are many people more famous than I and, often, that fame is richly deserved. In other cases, it is merely a manifestation of vanity or ambition and will not stand the test of time.

What is success?

It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.

And Almira, who still believed that an army of angels and archangels would descend from the heavens to protect the sacred city, said:

“Talk to us about miracles.”

And he answered:

What is a miracle?

We can define it in various ways: as something that goes against the laws of nature, an intercession in moments of deep crisis, healings and visions, an impossible encounter, or a last-minute intervention when the Unwanted Visitor arrives.

All these definitions are true, but a miracle goes beyond even that; it’s something that suddenly fills our hearts with Love. When that happens, we feel a profound reverence for the grace God has bestowed on us.

Give us this day, Lord, our daily miracle.

Even if we are incapable of noticing it because our mind is focused on great deeds and conquests. Even if we are too preoccupied with day-to-day life to know that our path was changed by it.

And when we are sad, help us to keep our eyes open to the life around us: a flower opening, the stars in the sky, the distant singing of a bird or a child’s voice nearby.

Help us to understand that there are certain things so important that we have to discover them without anyone’s help, and that we should not feel alone and helpless because You are there with us, ready to intervene if our feet go perilously close to the abyss.

Help us to continue onward despite the fear and to accept the inexplicable despite our need to explain and know everything.

Help us to understand that Love’s strength lies in its contradictions and that Love lasts because it changes and not because it stays the same and never faces any challenges.

And to understand, too, that each time we see the humble exalted and the arrogant humbled, we are witnessing a miracle.

Help us to know that when our legs are tired, we can keep walking, thanks to the strength in our hearts, and that when our hearts are tired, we can still carry on, thanks to the strength of our Faith.

Help us to see in each grain of desert sand proof of the miracle of difference, and may that encourage us to accept ourselves as we are. Because just as no two grains of sand are alike, so no two human beings will think and act in the same way.

Help us to be humble when we receive and joyful when we give.

Help us to understand that wisdom lies not in the answers we are given, but in the mystery of the questions that enrich our lives.

Help us never to be imprisoned by the things we think we know, because we know so little about Fate. And may this lead us to behave impeccably, making use of the four cardinal virtues: boldness, elegance, love, and friendship.

Give us this day, Lord, our daily miracle.

Just as there are many paths to the top of a mountain, so there are many paths to achieving our goal. Help us to recognize the only one that is worth following: the one on which Love is to be found.

Help us to awaken the Love sleeping within us before we awaken Love in other people. Only then will we be able to attract affection, enthusiasm, and respect.

Help us to distinguish battles that are ours, battles into which we are propelled against our will, and battles that we cannot avoid because Fate has placed them in our path.

May our eyes open so that we can see that no two days are ever the same. Each one brings with it a different miracle, which allows us to go on breathing, dreaming, and walking in the sun.

May our ears also open to hear the very apposite words that suddenly emerge from the mouth of one of our fellows, even though we haven’t asked for his advice and he has no idea what is going on in our soul at that moment.

And when we open our mouth, may we speak not just the language of men, but the language of angels, too, saying: “Miracles do not go against the laws of nature; we think that only because we do not know nature’s laws.”

And when we achieve this, may we bow our head in respect, saying: “I was blind, but now I can see. I was dumb, but now I can speak. I was deaf, but now I can hear. Because God worked his miracle within me, and everything I thought was lost has been restored.”

Miracles tear away the veils and change everything, but do not let us see what lies behind the veils.

They allow us to escape unharmed from the valley of the shadow of death, but do not tell us which road led us to the mountains of joy and light.

They open doors that were locked with impossible padlocks, but they use no key.

They surround the suns with planets so that they do not feel alone in the Universe, and they keep the planets from getting too close so that they won’t be devoured by the suns.