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NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
In my book The Alche Melchizedek says to the shepherd boy Santiago: "When you want so you to achieve it"
I believe this with allone's own destiny includes a series of stages that are far beyond our understanding, whose objective is always to take us back to the path of our Personal Legend--or to make us learn the lessons necessary to fulfill our own destiny I think I can better illustrate what I a an episode in my life
On August 12, 1979, I went to sleep with a single certainty: at the age of thirty I was successfullyexecutive I orking as artistic director for CBS in Brazil, and I had just been invited to the United States to talk to the owners of the company, ould surely provide me with every opportunity to achieve all that I desired to do in reat dream--to be a writer--had been set aside, but what did that matter? After all, real life was very different fro from literature in Brazil
That night I made a decision: to abandon e of opportunities Iflyrics whenever I wanted, and by doing so now and then for some newspaper Besides, I was convinced that : a brilliant future awaited me in the world of the music multinationals
When I woke up, I received a phone call from the president: I had just been fired, without further explanation Although I knocked on various doors in the next two years, I never found a position again in that field
When I finished writing The Fifth Mountain, I recalled that episode--and other htwould happen to cast me down I asked myself: why? Can it be that I'm condemned to always come close but never reach the finish line? Can God be so cruel that He would let me see the palm trees on the horizon only to have me die of thirst in the desert?
It took a long time to understand that it wasn't quite like that There are things that are brought into our lives to lead us back to the true path of our Personal Legend Other things arise so we can apply all that we have learned And, finally, so to teach us
In s need not be linked to pain and suffering; discipline and attentiveness alone are enough Although this understanding has beco in my life, it still did not equip me to transit certain difficult moments that I experienced, even with total discipline and attentiveness
One example is the case I have cited; I was a serious professional, ive the best there was in me, and had ideas that even today I consider hile But the unavoidable happened, at the very moment when I felt most secure and confident I believe I am not alone in this experience; the unavoidable has touched the life of every hu on the face of the earth Soiven up--but all of us have felt the wings of tragedy brushing against us
Why? To answer this question, I let Elijah lead hts of Akbar
PROLOGUE
At the beginning of the year 870 BC, a nation known as Phoenicia, which the Israelites called Lebanon, had marked almost three centuries of peace Its inhabitants could take pride in their accomplishments; because they were not politically powerful, they had developed an enviable skill at negotiation as the onlysurvival in a world beset by constant war An allianceSolomon of Israel had allowed the modernization of its merchant fleet and the expansion of trade Since that ti
Its navigators had traveled to places as distant as Spain and the Atlantic Ocean, and there are theories--as yet unconfir left inscriptions in northeastern and southern Brazil They carried glass, cedar, weapons, iron, and ivory The inhabitants of the large cities such as Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos were familiar with numbers, astronomical calculations, the manufacture of wine, and for al a set
of characters for writing, which the Greeks knew as alphabet