☆ Manuscript Found in Accra ☆ words to live by ☆

I am going to think of this day as the first day of my life.

I will look on the members of my family with surprise and amazement, glad to
discover that they are by my side, silently sharing that much talked about but little
understood thing called love.

I will look at everything and everyone as if for the first time, especially the small
things that I have grown used to, quite forgetting the magic surrounding them. 

Instead of noting down things I’m unlikely to forget on the piece of parchment I
always carry with me, I will write a poem. Even if I have never written one before and even if I never do so again, I will at least know that I once had the courage to put my feelings into words.

Tonight..., I’m going to spend time sorting through the pile of things I never had the patience to put in order. And I will find that a little of my history is there.

And even the things I am accustomed to—like the sandals which, after long use, have become an extension of my feet—will be clothed in the mystery of discovery.

Since I am heading off into the future, I will be helped by the scuff marks left on my
sandals from when I stumbled in the past.

May everything my hand touches and my eyes see and my mouth tastes be different, but the same. That way, all those things will cease to be still and instead will explain to me why they have been with me for such a long time; they will reveal to me the miracle of reencountering emotions worn smooth by routine.

I will drink some tea that I have never tried because others told me it tasted horrible. I will walk down a street I have never walked down before because others told me it was totally without interest. And I will find out whether or not I would like to go back there.

If it’s sunny tomorrow, I want to look at the sun properly for the first time.
If it’s cloudy, I want to watch and see in which direction the clouds are going. I
always think that I don’t have time, or that I don’t pay enough attention. Tomorrow, though, I will concentrate on the direction taken by the clouds or on the sun’s rays and the shadows they create.

Above my head exists a sky about which all humanity, over thousands of years, has woven a series of reasonable explanations.
Well, I will forget everything I learned about the stars, and they will be transformed once more into angels or children or whatever I feel like believing at that moment.

Time and life have given me plenty of logical explanations for everything, but my
soul feeds on mysteries. I need mystery. I need to see the voice of an angry god in a
rumble of thunder, even though many of you here might consider that heresy.
I want to fill my life with fantasy again, because an angry god is far stranger, far
more frightening, and far more interesting than a phenomenon explained by the sages.

For the first time, I will smile without feeling guilty, because joy is not a sin.
For the first time, I will avoid anything that makes me suffer, because suffering is not a virtue.

I will not complain about life, saying, “Everything’s always the same and I can do
nothing to change it.” Because I am living this day as if it were my first and, while it lasts, I will discover things that I did not even know were there.

Manuscript Found in Accra by Paulo Coelho ~ the book  I'm currently reading. So inspiring ♡ words to live by.