You have to take risks, he said. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.


Every day, God gives us the sun - and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist - that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moment exists - a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.


Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment helps us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments - but all of this is transitory; it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.


Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won't suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when that person looks back - and at some point everyone looks back - she will hear her heart saying, "What have you done with the miracles that point that God planted in your days? What have you done with the talents God bestowed on you? You buried yourself in a cave because you were fearful of losing those talents. So this is your heritage: the certainty that you wasted your life."


Pitiful are the people who must realize this. Because when they are finally able to believe in miracle, their life's magic moments will have already passed them by.


From: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept.
by Paulo Coelho