Don’t try to be useful, try to be yourself!

Ask a flower in the field:"do you feel useful? after all, you do nothing but produce the same flowers over and over?" And the flower will answer: "I am beautiful, and beauty is my reason for living."

Ask the river:"do you feel useful, given that all you do is to keep flowing in the same direction?"  And the river will answer: "I’m not trying to be useful, I’m trying to be a river."

Don’t try to be useful, try to be yourself, that is enough and that makes all the difference.  Walk neither faster nor slower than your own soul, because it is your soul that will teach you the usefulness of each step you take. Sometimes taking part in a great battle but sometimes you can do that simply by smiling, for no reason, at someone you happen to pass in the street.   Without intending to, you might have saved the life of a complete stranger, who also thought he was useless and might have been ready to kill himself, until a smile gave him new hope and confidence----- Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian novelist and lyricist, I became a huge fan of him after reading his bestselling book "Like the Flowing River".   Coelho has a profound understanding of the universe through his unique thoughts and reflections on different things, he explains the beauty of life in a very simple way.   We all come across experiences but how many of us cherish it with various realizations out of the simplest things that happen in the life?   His book made me think of the different possibilities that may happen in my life.  Somehow I wonder if it would be much better to read that book at night to contemplate the simple yet profound messages Coelho preaches in each one?  smile, smile, smile....

Coelho emphasizes awareness about what one believes, knows, and doesn’t know.  All of these intense personal challenges along with recognition of the constant change in the world and within oneself and create internal peace.  With internal peace, it comes love for others and bring peace to the world.  “Like the Flowing River” leaves me in a contemplative mood, inspired to spend more time on tasks of substance rather than the usual routine and superficiality life.

Anyway, I just can’t wait to read his new book-- Manuscript found in Accra  


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