I am currently slowly reading a book given to me by a dear friend. The Alchemist. It is full of stories that provoke deep thought. It might be the slowest I have ever read any book I enjoy because I am savoring it and not wanting to move on until I feel that particular story has saturated through me. So this means I am not very far into it and two particular scenes have left me pondering. I feel like sharing the second, the one I am still mulling over to see if I understand its meaning completely.
This week and next week my little and I are going through fables. We have a stack of other fables to read through, but I enjoy that I can tell him that even as an adult I like to read fables. This fable is about what the pilgrimage of life should look like. A young sheep herders' quest to find his destiny.
To paraphrase:
A young sheep shepherd visits a castle and waits two hours to speak with the wise king. He challenges the shepherd to hold two drops of lavender oil in his spoon and not to spill a drop while he explores the castle for a few hours. The shepherd does this and is proud to show that he has not dropped any of the oil. The wise man asks if he saw all the wonders of his castle. The reply was he did not. He was watching the oil the entire time. The wise man challenges the young shepherd tries again and looks at all the wonders and comes back with an empty spoon. The wise king says, "The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never forget the drops of oil on the spoon."
Do you think this is the secret of happiness?
Do you read from the story that the secret is balancing responsibility and seeking adventure?
Are we as a society overly concerned with seeking happiness, but ill equipped to find it?
How's that pursuit of happiness going for you?
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