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There are books that come to us in a timely way.

They change our lives or the way we think and look at things.

There were many books I read that changed something in me but only two that introduced me to two important words that had a profound effect on me. One of them is East of Eden from my favorite writer, John Steinbeck. It gifted me with the important word “timshel.”

The other book that found me in the best time possible was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I read The Alchemist several times through my life, and I always discovered something new that slipped by my attention before. There’s a word/phrase Coelho uses in The Alchemist several times. This word is “maktub.”

“Maktub” (مَكْتُوب) is an Arabic word that Coelho presents to us in the book and it stands for “it is written.”

Maktub is used to describe something that’s meant to be—like fate or destiny.

I first received the book from a girl in my German class at a crucial phase of my life. I was in high school, and I was going through the same struggle probably all of us go through around this time: I was discovering who I was and finding what made me me while still trying to be someone others would love and accept—which was the complete opposite of what I had discovered about myself.

The second time, the book came to me during university. It was another challenging time when I returned from my exchange year in South Korea and I was torn between my previous life and feeling forced to continue to live it by those close to me, or going against everyone and following the new path I discovered regarding what I wanted to do with my life.

The third time the book revisited me was at age 31, right after my first Camino pilgrimage in Spain. I remember I met another Hungarian girl in Finisterre and we quickly became friends. Once, we were on a hike from the village to the Zero Kilometre Stone at the lighthouse, and as we walked on the road between the aquamarine ocean and the edge of the lush forest, we talked about the word “maktub.” A couple of days later, I landed in Scotland (I was heading to Dunoon where I missed my connecting ferry), so I decided to go on a stroll in town and found The Alchemist sitting on an empty bench.

If you aren’t familiar with the story, briefly, it is about a young boy in Egypt who searches for his dreams—a treasure he cannot find. He ends up meeting many mentors on his journey who teach him important things about the world. He finds himself constantly challenged when he begins to travel toward and through the deserts of Africa as the first mentor he met encouraged him to embark on this journey that the protagonist saw in a dream. But instead of giving up and going back home when he meets many challenges, he always finds a way to move forward.

“No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn’t know it.” ~ Paulo Coelho

The third time the book appeared in my life, I was completely lost and had no idea who I was or who I wanted to become. Our lives are not only defined by the opportunities we take but also by the opportunities we miss. And that is how everything is maktub.

Everything that comes to us is meant to be and what stays is meant to be. We find this concept in many religions and belief systems. We hear so many times things like, “What’s meant for you won’t pass you by,” or “If it’s meant to be, it’ll be,” or “Trust in the unfolding.”

We don’t have to hurry or worry; things are happening in their own time. Just believe. Tell this to someone who is depressed, or in a desperate situation. It can seem impossible. It’s hard to accept that whatever hardship we are going through is actually meant to be, especially at the moment we are experiencing it. Yet, our success rate of surviving what life has ever thrown in our way is 100 percent, and as they say, God never puts anything on our shoulders we can’t carry. It all requires a lot of faith; it’s true. Maybe we need to get out of our own way and have some faith?

As written in the Bhagavad Gita, everyone is here to perform a certain role; a warrior will go to war, and the king will rule to fulfill their duties, which are already assigned to them.

I am not religious, but I am interested in learning about religions, as well as spirituality and science that questions how our reality gets created. For me, the crossroads of all these is where it starts to make sense. Maybe it is all written already, but what if everything is being written as we live our lives?

This quote explains that the only thing we can change is our reaction to the events, “How we respond to an event is in our hands.” If you interpret it this way, everything else is written.

God/Source/the universe/our higher self/our subconscious, or whatever you want to call it, knows what is best for us and guides us toward it. Our desires are present within us because they are written (or destined) to be ours. The more controlling we are about things and outcomes, the further we get from what is meant to be ours—hence we suffer. Yet, I believe unwanted events still happen so we can be led back to the original path that is written for us—to what we are meant to experience. The normal reaction to negative events or failures would be to take a step back, reflect, and learn from the situation.

We have our desires, our perception, our beliefs, how we react to things, and so on (our personality), and they write the future for us as we go. Our personality creates our personal reality. In my understanding that’s how it’s possible to change the course of our lives—as we change, the things that are written for us change as well. When we change the way of our thinking (how we respond to things), the story has to unfold in a different fashion as well.

We’re being asked to trust that things will work out. And I have to be honest; in my life, things always worked out the best when I surrendered my control of what I wanted to experience and just accepted the situation for what it was and trusted that the right thing, the right opportunity, would come to me in the best way possible. It always did. It’s something I needed to practice a lot (and still learn to do). From time to time, I still find myself thinking that I know best what is good for me, what is meant to be mine—and that turns me into a control freak and drives me nuts.

And this is a lesson I still keep practicing daily, with more or less success. Maktub, for me, is not being anxious or worried about my future or being attached to results and outcomes but following my calling/intuition/joy and staying open to experiencing life to the fullest.

The past three years have humbled me. I used to be stubborn about myself and the things I wanted in life and struggled a lot. I’ve come to accept that the “how” and “when” is beyond my control. I put more trust in the universe. Doing so has given me a sense of peace and abundance I never experienced before. I often find myself marveling at the magical ways the universe shows up for me.

Coelho is an amazing writer, and I’m sure that if you read his book (and every other book he published), you’ll learn valuable lessons yourself, even if you don’t believe in maktub.

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