Stories to Inspire You and Make You Reflect by Coelho

Storytelling is a fundamental element in many areas of our lives. They capture our attention and allow us to examine ourselves.

They can give us a brief, but valuable, glance of our lives from a different point of view.  This new point of view can be the spark that helps us take action to make a positive change in life.

These two short stories are from one of the world's best-loved storyteller, Paulo Coehlo.

Paulo Coelho de Souza is a Brazilian lyricist and novelist, best known for his novel The Alchemist. In 2014, he uploaded his personal papers online to create a virtual Paulo Coelho Foundation.

These stories are taken from his book Like the Flowing River. The book is a collection of Coelho's reflections and short stories, written from 1998 to 2005. This book explores what it means to be truly alive.

I hope you enjoy them just as much as I did.

How to Climb Mountains

Choose the Mountain You Want to Climb

Don't be influenced by what other people say: 'that one's prettier' or 'that one looks easier.'

You are going to put a lot of energy and enthusiasm into achieving your objective, and you are the only person responsible for your choice, so be quite sure about what you are doing.

Find out How to Reach the Mountain

Often you can see the mountain in the distance - beautiful, exciting, full of challenges. However, when you try to reach it, what happens?

It is surrounded by roads, forests lie between you and your objective, and what seems clear on the map is far more complicated in reality.

So you must try all the paths and tracks until, one day, you find yourself before the peak you intend to climb.

Learn from Someone Who Has Been There Before

However unique you may think you are, there is always someone who has had the same dream before, and who will have left signs behind that will make the climb less arduous: the best place to attach a rope, trodden paths, branches broken off to make it easier to pass.

It is your climb, and it is your responsibility, too, but never forget that other people's experiences are always helpful.

Dangers, seen from close to, are controllable

When you start to climb the mountain of your dreams, pay attention to what is around you. There are, of course, precipices.

There are almost imperceptible cracks. There are stones polished so smooth by rain and wind that they have become as slippery as ice.

But if you know where you are putting your foot, you will see any traps and be able to avoid them.

The Landscape Changes, so Make the Most of it

You must, naturally, always keep in mind your objective - reaching the top. However, as you climb, the view changes, and there is nothing wrong with stopping now and then to enjoy the vista.

With each metre you climb, you can see a little further, so take time to discover things you have never noticed before.

Respect Your Body

You will only manage to climb a mountain if you give your body the care it deserves. You have all the time that life gives you, so do not demand too much from your body.

If you walk too quickly, you will grow tired and give up halfway. If you walk too slowly, the night might fall, and you will get lost.

Enjoy the landscape, drink the fresh spring water, and eat the fruit that Nature so generously offers you, but keep walking.

Respect Your Soul

Don't keep repeating, 'I am going to do it.' Your soul knows this already.

What it needs to do is to use this long walk to grow, to reach out as far as the horizon, to touch the sky.

Obsession will not help you in the search for your goal and will end up spoiling the pleasure of the climb.

On the other hand, don't keep repeating 'It's harder than I thought,' because you will sap your inner strength.

Be Prepared to Go the Extra Mile

The distance to the top of the mountain is always greater than you think.

There is bound to come a moment when what seemed close is still very far away.

But since you are prepared to go still further, this should not be a problem.

Be Joyful When You Reach the Top

Cry, clap your hands, shout out loud that you made it; let the wind (because it is always windy up there) purify your mind, cool your hot, weary feet, open your eyes, blow the dust out of your heart.

What was once only a dream, a distant vision, is now part of your life. You made it, and that is good.

Make a Promise

Now that you have discovered a strength you did not even know you had told yourself that you will use if for the rest of your days; promise yourself, too, to discover another mountain and set off on a new adventure.

Tell Your Story

Yes, tell your story. Be an example to others. Tell everyone that it's possible, and then others will find the courage to climb their own mountains.

The Importance of a Degree

My old mill, in a small village in France, has a line of trees that separates it from the farm next door.

The other day, my neighbour came to see me. He must be about seventy years old. I've sometimes seen him and his wife working in the fields and thought that it was high time they stopped.

My neighbour is a very pleasant man, but he says that the leaves from my trees are falling on his roof and that I should cut the trees down.

I'm really shocked. How can a person who has spent his entire life in contact with Nature want me to destroy something that has taken so long to grow, simply because, in ten years' time, it might cause problems with his roof?

I invite him in for a coffee. I say that I'll take full responsibility and that if one day, those leaves (which will, anyway, be swept by the wind and by the summer) do cause any damage, I'll pay for him to have a new roof. My neighbour says that that doesn't interest him, he wants me to cut down those trees.

I get slightly angry and say that I would instead buy his farm from him.

'My land isn't for sale,' he says.

'But with that money, you could buy a lovely house in town and live out the rest of your days there with your wife, without having to put up with harsh winters and failed harvests.'

'My farm is not for sale. I was born here and grew up here, and I am too old to move."

He suggests that we get an expert from town to come to assess the situation and make a decision - that way, neither of us needs to get angry with the other. We are, after all, neighbours.

When he leaves, my first reaction is to label him as insensitive and lacking in respect for Mother Earth.

Then I feel intrigued: why would he not agree to sell his land?

And before the day is over, I realise that it is because his life has only one story, and my neighbour does not want to change that story.

Going to live in the town would mean plunging into an unknown world with different values, and maybe he thinks he's too old to learn.

Is this something peculiar to my neighbour? No. I think it happens to everyone. Sometimes, we are so attached to our way of life that we turn down an excellent opportunity simply because we don't know what do do with it.

In his case, his farm and his village are the only places he knows, and there is no point in taking any risks.

In the case of people who live in the town, they all believe that they must have a university degree, get married, have children, make sure that their children get a degree too, and so on and so on. No one asks themselves: 'Could I do something different?'

I remember that my barber worked day and night so that his daughter could finish her sociology degree.

She finally graduated and, after knocking on many doors, found work as a secretary at a cement works.

Yet my barber still used to say very proudly: 'My daughter's got a degree.'

Most of my friends, and most of my friends' children, also have degrees. That doesn't mean that they've managed to find the kind of work they wanted. Not at all.

They went to university because someone, at a time when universities were prominent, said that, to rise in the world, you had to have a degree.

And thus the world was deprived of some excellent gardeners, bakers, antique dealers, sculptors, and writers. Perhaps this is the moment to review the situation.

Doctors, engineers, scientists, and lawyers need to go to university, but does everyone? I'll let these lines by Robert Frost provide the answer:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -  

I took the one less travelled by,                        

And that has made all the difference.

Just to conclude the story about my neighbour. The expert came and, to my surprise, showed us a French law which states that any tree has to be at least three metres from another property. Mine are only two metres away, and so I will have to cut them down.

Thanks for reading these two inspirational short stories, they make us think and reflect, don't you think?

If you know of any other thoughtful short stories you would like to share, make a list and let me know in the comments below or drop me an email, I will be happy to feature them in future blogs, and you will make a significant contribution to others. 

To Your Success,

Luci