Warning. You may or may not interpret this book as I have. That’s okay. You may hate this book. That’s okay too. We simply have different perspectives that affect our understandings.

A love from my tribe told me that reading this book would change my life. She was right. The Alchemist is already my second favorite book after Their Eyes Were Watching God. Any chance I get to share my favorite quote, I’m taking it.

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”

It just so happened that I was in the bookstore and I came across Manuscript Found in Accra. Talk about the Universe looking out! I was anxious to dig in.

The book isn’t broken into your typical chapters. Instead it focuses on the truths that a man named Copt shares with a group of townspeople. The truths he discusses are defeat, solitude, change, beauty, direction, love, living in the present, sex, community/friendship, elegance, work, success, miracles, anxiety, the future, loyalty, weapons and lastly enemies.

These are the truths that resonated with me.

Solitude

In solitude, they will discover the love that might otherwise have arrived unnoticed. In solitude, they will understand and respect the love that left them. In solitude, they will be able to decide whether it is worth asking that lost love to come back or if they should simply let it go and set off along a new path. In solitude, they will learn that saying no does not always show a lack of generosity, and that saying yes is not always a virtue.

This was a hard pill to swallow. Despite my social media presence, I’ve been spending quite a lot of time in solitude. Most days I come home just to spend time in silence with my own thoughts. I don’t turn the TV on. On occasion I may even play instrumental music. This minor routine has given me the most clarity and focus that I’ve never had in my life. My creativity has kicked into overdrive. I’ve taken all focus off of relationships to focus on my health and pursuing my passions whole-heartedly. I realized that solitude was actually the void that needed to be filled in my life before I can be open to receive anything else such as love or even success.

For me, these words don’t necessarily have to apply to romantic love. In solitude I was able to rediscover the love that I was neglecting to give myself. I found myself falling in love with me all over again. It’s also allowed me the opportunity to reflect, forgive myself and move forward from the moment and actions that proved that I wasn’t loving myself.

However, when applied to romantic love, I could also relate. I’ve been reflecting like hell. It’s amazing what we miss when we are caught up in the moment. I am able to see past relationships at face value. Strange right? It’s helped me realize that I’ve only ever loved one person unconditionally (or it could have been stupidity) and how dangerous of a state it is to be in so I need to treat unconditional love more delicately.

Change

Everything changes whether we accept and recognize it or not. The Universe has a funny way of telling you everything that you need to hear at the moment you need to hear it.

And to those who believe that adventures are dangerous, I say, try routine; that kills you far more quickly.

As it stands I spend forty hours of my life ever week pursuing the passions of someone else when I could be working on my own. It was confirmation that the time has come for me to transition out of my current role.

Direction

Because ever since your goal found out that you were traveling toward it, it has been running to meet you.

I cried when I read this. I cried because I was overwhelmed and overjoyed. I kept rereading and crying even harder. I’ve been putting so much time into this blog, into my poetry, into my writing in general. I’ve also been laying the foundation for Pretty Dope Right? to expand to other areas of interest and the journey is becoming easier. More opportunities are presenting themselves for me to showcase my gift.

Love

Life is too short for us to keep important words like “I love you” locked in our hearts.

Maybe I just give love too freely. I’ve always wondered how and why other people don’t. Other people give up on it. I likely never will. I think what drives me is knowing that one day I’ll actually get it right and everything else in between was just a warmup.

Elegance

Elegance tends to be mistaken for superficiality and mere appearance.

I wonder why people get so caught up in physical attraction. I’ll be honest, even sometimes I get tired of hearing about it. I always ask, well how do you know that beautiful people are good people? People also assume that when you’re beautiful, you’re exempt from negativity, loneliness, pain etc. I assure you, that’s not the case.

Anxiety

As many of you may or may not know, I was diagnosed with anxiety in 2015. These past three years have been one hell of a fight trying to control it without medication. I’ve managed to keep the panic attacks at bay but the anxiety has never fully gone away. One of my minor indicators of me being anxious is biting pen tops. I have to remind myself that “I’m good” or that “regardless of what I’m anxious about, the sun and moon will still take their turns coming out so no worries.”

It will never disappear, but the great wisdom of life is to realize that we can be the masters of the things that try to enslave us.

Enemies

Therefore, your enemies are not the adversaries who were put there to test your courage. They are the cowards who were put there to test your weakness.

Have you read Manuscript Found in Accra? What were your interpretations of it?