This past Friday one of my oldest and closest friends from high school passed away. During our teens we were as inseparable as we were incorrigible. We had a lot of fun!
As adults we remained close, but our careers and life commitments limited considerably our adding to our mutual trove of memories in any quantity close to those of our youth. As I gazed upon his face for the last time, those memories were all I could see.
Next, I was drawn to nearby monitor and watched the selected video images of that his family had lovingly compiled of tell the story of his life. There were images of him growing up, fishing, hunting, partying. There were pictures of him as a loving brother, husband, father and friend.
Pondering this, I thought about how much of our precious time we squander in our quest for material riches only to find out too late that our true wealth are those memories; those video pictures.
My friend may not have been rich, but he was quite wealthy.
This week was a reminder for me of the need for all of us to strive to live in a more harmonious balance of both our commitments and our life’s pleasures. That ultimately led me to a story that is well traveled on the web and social media so you may already be familiar with it. It has been on my list of favorite inspirational stories for over a decade. But today I’m taking it off the proverbial shelf, dusting it off, reading it again, and sharing it with you:
An American businessman was standing 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 American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.
“How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked.
“Only a little while” the Mexican replied.
“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked.
“I have enough to support my family’s immediate needs” the Mexican said.
“But” the American then asked, “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, senor.”
The American scoffed: “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds you could buy a bigger boat and, 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 consumers, eventually opening your own can factory. 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 NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise.”
The Mexican fisherman asked: “But senor, how long will this all take?”
To which the American replied: “15-20 years.”
“But what then, senor?”
The American laughed and said: “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO – an Initial Public Offering – and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.”
“Millions, senor? Then what?”
The American said slowly: “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…”
What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from … And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. – T. S. Elliot
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William “Bill” Bacque