“You must earn more.” “No, be content.” “Grow and get big.” “No, focus on being small.” “Do what makes you happy.” No, be willing to suffer today to enjoy life later.”
It’s confusing, I know! “The Story of the Fisherman and the Businessman” is portrayed just like that. I first found it on author Paolo Coelho’s website years ago. And I often find myself coming back to it.
I originally thought it was Coelho’s original work. While researching, however, many people credit the German writer Heinrich Theodor Böll as the original writer. Others speculate it’s rooted in Buddhist teachings.
Who knows? If you know its origin, please let me know. For now, it’s the lesson that matters more.
(image from joeburridge.com)
“The Story of the Fisherman and The Businessman”
There was once a businessman who was sitting by the beach in a small Brazilian village. As he sat, he saw a Brazilian fisherman rowing a small boat towards the shore having caught quite few big fish.
The businessman was impressed and asked the fisherman, “How long does it take you to catch so many fish?”
The fisherman replied, “Oh, just a short while.”
“Then why don’t you stay longer at sea and catch even more?” The businessman was astonished.
“This is enough to feed my whole family,” the fisherman said.
The businessman then asked, “So, what do you do for the rest of the day?”
The fisherman replied, “Well, I usually wake up early in the morning, go out to sea and catch a few fish, then go back and play with my kids. In the afternoon, I take a nap with my wife, and evening comes, I join my buddies in the village for a drink — we play guitar, sing and dance throughout the night.”
The businessman offered a suggestion to the fisherman. “I am a PhD in business management. I could help you to become a more successful person. From now on, you should spend more time at sea and try to catch as many fish as possible. When you have saved enough money, you could buy a bigger boat and catch even more fish. Soon you will be able to afford to buy more boats, set up your own company, your own production plant for canned food and distribution network. By then, you will have moved out of this village and to Sao Paulo, where you can set up HQ to manage your other branches.”
The fisherman continues, “And after that?”
The businessman laughs heartily, “After that, you can live like a king in your own house, and when the time is right, you can go public and float your shares in the Stock Exchange, and you will be rich.”
The fisherman asks, “And after that?”
The businessman says, “After that, you can finally retire, you can move to a house by the fishing village, wake up early in the morning, catch a few fish, then return home to play with kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar, sing and dance throughout the night!”
The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”
Perspective
Whatever you do in life — work, business, project, school — people will always have an opinion on how you can do it better or what things you can add or subtract.
There’s no right or wrong answer. Just like what philosopher Alan Watts said in The Story of the Chinese Farmer:
“The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad — because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune.”
Do what works for you. Do what you believe is useful to you.
You can consider other’s advice, but at the end of the day it’s always up to you. Everything is perspective.
Listen, your intuition is telling you what to do…
Yes you know what it is.