The Fisherman and The Businessman

SUCCESS

 

It is in our human nature to desire to be successful. We all want success. But how do we measure success? 

 

This is a story about a Mexican fisherman who illustrates success in a simple life well lived.

 

The businessman was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The businessman complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while.

 

The businessman then asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs. The businessman then asked, but what do you do with the rest of your time? The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos; I have a full and busy life, señor."

 

The businessman scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and I could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats; eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the processor and eventually open your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City where you would run your expanding enterprise."

 

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But señor, how long will this all take?" To which the businessman replied, "15-20 years." "But what then, señor?" The businessman laughed and said, "That's the best part! When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions." "Millions, señor? Then what?" The businessman said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

 

The fisherman, still smiling, looked up and said, "Isn't that what I'm doing right now?"

 

-Author Unknown

 

We live in a world in which being successful means everything. Success is measured by power, popularity, control, achievement, and winning. By having more and being more we think this equals "success". The businessman measured success by the accumulation of wealth and by living a plush life. Sure, wealth may momentarily help us to escape emptiness but it cannot cure it. Only love, happiness and peace can fill the empty voids in our lives.

"Money has never made a man happy yet, nor will it. The more a man has, the more he wants" -Benjamin Franklin

The businessman encouraged the fisherman to accumulate "things". "Buy a bigger boat," then "buy several boats," and then eventually buy a "fleet of fishing boats." The businessman claimed all this would lead to power and status. What does all this really mean?

"Too many people buy things they don't want, with money they don't have, to impress people they don't like" -Will Smith

To me it sounds like more "things" we have, the more we have to show off our increasing ego to hide behind the insecurities because we are afraid to bring forth what we really want in life, we fear judgement and falling behind in the food chain of being filthy rich. People use the phrase, "the bigger the better". Well I say "less is more". 

Life is not a Race, but indeed a Journey. Be honest. You will get the same in return. Work Hard. You will appreciate everything that much more. Be choosy with people. Quality beats quantity everytime. Say "Thank you", "I Love You", and "Great Job" to someone every day of your life. Someone deserves to hear it.  Let your handshake mean more than what is enclosed in pen and paper. Dream your own dreams. It allows you to become that which you aspire to, not someone else's vision of you. Appreciate the little things in life and enjoy them. Some of the best things really are free.

In closing, these wise words from Waldo Emerson would have to sum up with this to the fullest on my definition of success...

"To laugh often and always; to win the respect of loved ones and the affection of children; to learn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best inothers; to leave the world a little bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed socialcondition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

 

 

"Darkness" and "The Light"

The polarities of life are extreme examples of two basic human constitutes or tendencies. There have been many ways of characterizing them. For example, male and female, intellectual and emotional, consciousness and the unconscious, yin and the yang, spirit and the flesh, sun and the moon, unity and multiplicity, light and the darkness, and so on. Each pair is a metaphor for the pulling tension of the polarities in our lives. The heading I have chosen to express this tension is "darkness" and "the light" because they are large resonant terms with religious connotations and I am not a religious man. Although I do think this subject needs to be brought up in a general unbiased context and discussed on a more regular basis. We tend to shy away from anything outside of what's going on in pop culture. Our conversations are based around useless garbage like Jersey Shore and Kim Kardashian. This piece is not to be understood as a theological concept, but rather as a symbolization of bettering my own understanding as to where we came from and how we were brought into this world beyond our mother's womb. So let's begin with the innermost part of us. The spirit or soul.

I have always wondered if there were a difference between the two words associated with inner being, 'Spirit' and 'Soul'. Since I was a child, I have always been fascinated with the idea that where is this innate omen inside of us that leads to a higher power or 'other side'. Thus, I did a little research on the conjunction of the two metaphorical mystical forces and I came up somewhat of a creative illustration of the two.

Spirit is expressed in metaphors of light. The spirit flies and soars like Peter Pan with an imagination beyond our comprehension and an age which never changes. That's why you hear the old expressions, "he has an old soul" it is referring to the ageless spirit. Our spirit longs for transcendence, to rise above the world. The spirit is 100% pure. Pure reason, pure philosophy, pure mathematics, pure light, pure love.

Soul is expressed in metaphors of darkness. It can only be visible to other spirits. The soul is not transcendent but immanent, lying hidden within the world. It prefers the twilight to the light, where things mingle and worlds intersect. In contrast to our flesh, the spirit resists disease and flees death. Soul seeks death like it's own proper realm. The soul savors death, whose bitterness is an initiation. Spirit leaps over death and its darkness to emphasize the light of rebirth. Where does the spirit and soul come from?

The spirit and soul travel metaphysically into our flesh from a higher source of power that is beyond our understanding. Buddhists call it our "Chi" and Christians call it "Holy Spirit". Regardless of the fact, quite simply we are a creation, sculpted in the perfect image of a higher consciousness much like every other beautiful aspect of Mother Earth. This is something we cannot grasp because it is such an intricate process that not even scientists have come to figure it out. Just take a look at a strand of DNA under a microscope, it is beyond unexplainable how the aesthetics of how we are created came to be.

Since we are this creation, that does not make us pure. Just like any other figure in mother nature's essence, we can be corrupted and used for an unintended purpose due to free will and the gift of consciousness. Furthermore, in us is this light and this is not a metaphor. They are real photons our bodies emit. On the flip side, darkness is not a synonym for evil as depicted in religious terms. It is a relative absence of light, and is necessary for any creation to be viewed by us. There cannot be light without the dark. Much like the rotational sphere of our universe, if we always had sunlight and no darkness, the world would rot and everything would be destroyed and vise versa. Much like how there is no duality such that one is better than the other. In every human we have been given the virtue of balance. How one chooses to use this virtue is up to free will. If the balance is distorted and the one takes ascendancy over the other, there will be no good which could come from it. Thus, if there is a God, he would have wanted us to have a perfect balance and live in harmony with the universe, mother nature, and each other. Never having excess of one thing to the point where the other is neglected. Abuse of anything, even of the light is of negative nature. We are the darkness. We are the light. The kingdom is within us and all around us. Even as illustrated in biblical scripture.

“The Kingdom Of God is within you, and all around you. ” Luke 17:21

Universal Mind Control?

A great except from the amazing book "Prometheus Rising".

"The traditional Childrearing methods are quite logical, pragmatic and sound in fulfilling the real purpose of society, which is not to create an ideal person, but to create a semi-robot who mimics the society as closely as possible - both in its rational and its irrational aspects, both as the repository of the wisdom of the past and as the sum total of all the cruelties and stupidities of the past. Very simply, a totally aware, alert, awakened (un-brainwashed) person would not fit very well into any of the standard roles society offers; the damaged, robotized products of traditional child-rearing do fit into those slots.

That is, there is a neuro-socialogical 'logic' to the illogical. Are traditional schools very much like mini-prisons? Do they stifle imagination, cramp the child physically and mentally and run on various forms of overt and covert terrorism? Of course, the answer is a un-ambiguous yes; but schools are necessary to train people for roles in the ordinary office or factory or profession, which are also very much like mini prisons, stifle imagination, cramp the person physically and mentally and run on terror (threat of loss of bio survival tickets in the form of pay checks). The permissive movement in child-rearing appeared only when it did, and has succeeded only to a limited extent, because society has always needed and still thinks it needs human robots.

Utopian child rearing will advance further, necessarily, only as society itself evolves out of authoritarianism. That is, as the accelerated changes now occurring propel us into the most rapid period of social evolution in all human history, we will then need citizens who are not robots, who are creative; who are not docile, who are innovative, who are not narrow-minded bigots, who are explorers in every sense of the word."