By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

by Paulo Coelho

There is a legend that everything that falls into the waters of this river—leaves, insects, the feathers of birds—is transformed into the rocks that make the riverbed.

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.

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 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 miracles, their life’s magic moments will have already passed them by.

Remember that human wisdom is madness in the eyes of God. But if we listen to the child who lives in our soul, our eyes will grow bright. If we do not lose contact with that child, we will not lose contact with life.

“Do you know the exercise of the Other? It’s part of a story written a hundred years ago, whose author . . .”

Before I fell asleep, I decided I would do what he called the “exercise of the Other.” I am here in this room, I thought, far from everything? familiar to me. talking about things that have never interested me and sleeping in a city where I’ve never set foot before. I can pretend—at least for a few minutes—that I am different. I began to imagine how I would like to be living right at that moment. I wanted to be happy, curious, joyful—living every moment intensely, drinking the water of life thirstily. Believing again in my dreams. Able to fight for what I wanted. Loving a man who loved me. Yes, that was the woman I wanted to be—the woman who was suddenly presenting herself and becoming me. I felt that my soul was bathed in the light of a god—or of a goddess—in whom I had lost faith. And I felt that at that moment, the Other left my body and was standing in the corner of that small room.

needed to know. Little by little, I discovered that as I talked to myself, a wiser voice was saying things for me.”

sometimes when I’m talking with someone and get excited about what I’m saying, I find myself saying things I’ve never said before. It seems almost as if I’m ‘channeling’ an intelligence that isn’t mine—one that understands life much better than me.

“We are our own greatest surprise,” he said. “Faith as tiny as a grain of sand allows us to move mountains. That’s what I’ve learned. And now, my own words sometimes surprise me.

I’m like everyone else: I’m scared. It might work for you or for my neighbor, but never for me.”