Comparing and Contrasting Essay - Personal Legends

Myron Mangubat                                                                R03 W/S 7:00-8:50

Comparing and Contrasting Essay                                                Rafael Silan

1508                                                                                  81 Inciong

                                                Personal Legends

        “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” We all have dreams and goals, it is what keeps us going and it is one of the things that we wake up for every morning. Ask yourself what is the point of going through your day to day life if you did not have something to look forward to. Life would be pointless and dull. There will be times when we will feel lost and do not know what we actually want in life. During these times we will feel like giving up and end up stopping everything we are doing. We get too comfortable in the position we are in and then we freeze at the moment too scared of taking risk and of moving forward to where we really want to be. This is a story that revolves around a young Andulasian shepherd named Santiago and and the time when he woke up and finally decided to chase his dream. There in the story were series of events that

 made him change his view in life how it convinced him to start a journey to create his own personal legend and find his treasure.

        The protagonist Santiago has always dreamed of traveling he believed that this was his true purpose in life but his complacency in his living have always pulled him back. He has always enjoyed being a shepherd, it gave him the freedom to travel although not to the fullest extent because his sheep needed him and he cannot leave them alone. One day he noticed that every time he slept under a growing sycamore tree, he always had a certain dream. He would always dream of  finding a treasure at the foot of the Egyptian Pyramids. Although he was doubtful at first paying no mind to the dreams but once dream started to become more frequent he decided consult with a gypsy. The gypsy told Santiago that he should travel to Egypt to find his treasure, something that he found annoying at first because he believed he did not need anybody to tell him what he already knows for one tenths of his treasure if he finds it. But this was also repeated by the king of Salem named Melchizedek who he learned a lot from and eventually admired. The king told him about worlds greatest lie that our fate is always in our control and that he should create his own personal legend. The king was somehow able to convince Santiago to leave for the Egypt and also asked him to give him one tenth of his sheep as payment for telling him how to find the treasure. After talking to the king he saw a butterfly which he considered a good omen, further reinforcing his belief that he should start to moving. These events were the spark the made him start the journey he went on leaving everything behind to follow his dreams.

        Santiago even at the start of his journey has already faced a lot of problems. and though these problems made him question himself if he really wants to continue to Egypt, it also strengthened him for the long journey and more challenges ahead. To pursue his journey he sold all of his remaining sheep. In the first part of his journey he had  he passed through Tangier, a city in the northern part of Morocco. It was a strange city for him because it was very different from where he was from. There he was befriended by a young man who somehow gained his trust when he showed him what he should do when he was in trouble with a local. His new friend told him he help him get to Egypt. since he was in a place where he knows nobody and he was not familiar with the customs of the city, he found it useful that he has a friend that can show him the way. While walking around the busy marketplace looking to buy camels for their travel he was distracted by a beautiful sword he admired so much but once when he started looking for his new found friend he was nowhere to be found taking with him all his money he got from selling all his remaining sheep. He tried waiting for his friend for a long time until he was the only person left in the earlier buzzing marketplace but he never saw his friend again. Because of this for the first time in his life he became desperate not sure what he will do. He cannot continue on his journey or turn back home since he don't have money and have already sold all his sheep. He was in a foreign land do not know anybody and cannot move forward in his current state. That was when he was forced to work for a crystal merchant to earn money to support himself in that hard time. when he arrived at the crystal merchant's shop, the business was weak and it was not earning enough. But with Santiago's help they were able to turn the crystal merchant's fortune around. They started earning the shop more than when he started. All the while he was thinking about buying more sheep and returning home with all the money he has earned. One day the crystal merchant shared his story with Santiago, a story about him not fulfilling his dream to settle for a more stable livelihood. The crystal merchant told Santiago that this was something that he regretted up until that time, even in the face of financial success it still made him sad. This made Santiago think, he decided to forego his desire to go home and continue of his journey towards his treasure and fulfill his personal legend. These events strengthened his perseverance and resolve to finish his journey even though there have been more road blocks that will make him want to not continue his journey.