I can't let May go by with so few posts, when it's supposed to be a summer month when there are no brats to educate. So here I am recirculating something I had written a year back (yeah you got it right, it was in May!) to entertain my facebook friends that I had never gotten around to putting up on this blog - the hallowed space of my beloved aardvark avatar. The first part of this post is a fable I have stolen from somewhere on the net (it has nothing to do with the heartwarming Will Smith movie), and the second is my own reworking of it. I like both pieces!
The Mexican replied, “Only a little while, senor.”
The ... See MoreAmerican then asked, “Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?”
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American 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 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, 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, eventually opening 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 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 and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”
“Millions, senor? Then what?”
The American 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 siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”
A young American man in tattered jeans sat in a hammock strumming his guitar in Mexico's Yucatan coast when a small boat docked. In it was an old weather-beaten Mayan fisherman and a very small haul of fish.
"Hola amigo", hollered the American in uber-friendly Yankee-accented Spanish, "how was your day?"
"It was hard", the fisherman peered at him with suspicious eyes, obviously not in a chatty mood.
"Why do you say that? You have such a simple and beautiful life, being out in the open, getting healthy exercise in natural surroundings, and now I am sure you are going to return to your lovely family, and drink and dance the evening away."
"Huh", the old man replied hotly, " life in these parts is hard. I don't have enough money to buy a modern motorized boat and better nets, I fear for my life every time a hurricane comes, I have to support a large family but my eldest son, who used to help, died in an accident because there are no good hospitals here , and a large chunk of earnings are taken away by the local drug mafia."
"And now there's the oil spill made by you gringos that's killed off most of the fish here", he added as an afterthought. Then quickly recovering his composure and realizing he had been rude to a foreigner, he inquired: "And you senor, what is your life like? what brings you here?"
" I was a financial analyst in New York. I lived in a very plush apartment in downtown Manhattan, earned millions, played golf, drove sports cars, was hot on the dating market, and partied hard on the weekends, before I realized this was no life at all, things were always so uncertain with recessions and all, and I was too stressed out, and lonely, and unhappy. So I gave my job up, gave away my money to charity and came here, to live like a simple Mexican villager. I will farm, fish, take long walks and siestas, play music, serenade pretty Latinas and have a full and rich life!"
"That's a lot of things to do", wondered the old man, still not very convinced.
"Oh and I also plan to write a book about my life and experiences here, and you people are going to be the main characters in it", the upbeat American added.
"What are you going to do with this book of yours once it's written?", the old Mexican clearly didn't think that books were very useful.
"I'll publish it of course! You'll see it'll be a bestseller!"
"So what if it becomes a bestseller?"
"Then it will sell well and I'll make millions, of course!", the American was beginning to get irritated with these obvious questions that he hadn't even felt necessary to think about.
"And what are you going to do with your millions?"
"Oh I'm going to lead a comfortable life without having to worry again! I'll buy a beach house in Florida, drive good cars, play.....", the American man stopped in his tracks because the Mexican man was rolling on the beach laughing his ass off as if he had just met the most ridiculous guy ever.
Pursuit of Happiness
An American 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 American 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, senor.”
The ... See MoreAmerican then asked, “Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?”
The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.
The American 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 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, 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, eventually opening 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 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 and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”
“Millions, senor? Then what?”
The American 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 siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”
"Pursuit of Happiness", as it really happened
A young American man in tattered jeans sat in a hammock strumming his guitar in Mexico's Yucatan coast when a small boat docked. In it was an old weather-beaten Mayan fisherman and a very small haul of fish.
"Hola amigo", hollered the American in uber-friendly Yankee-accented Spanish, "how was your day?"
"It was hard", the fisherman peered at him with suspicious eyes, obviously not in a chatty mood.
"Why do you say that? You have such a simple and beautiful life, being out in the open, getting healthy exercise in natural surroundings, and now I am sure you are going to return to your lovely family, and drink and dance the evening away."
"Huh", the old man replied hotly, " life in these parts is hard. I don't have enough money to buy a modern motorized boat and better nets, I fear for my life every time a hurricane comes, I have to support a large family but my eldest son, who used to help, died in an accident because there are no good hospitals here , and a large chunk of earnings are taken away by the local drug mafia."
"And now there's the oil spill made by you gringos that's killed off most of the fish here", he added as an afterthought. Then quickly recovering his composure and realizing he had been rude to a foreigner, he inquired: "And you senor, what is your life like? what brings you here?"
" I was a financial analyst in New York. I lived in a very plush apartment in downtown Manhattan, earned millions, played golf, drove sports cars, was hot on the dating market, and partied hard on the weekends, before I realized this was no life at all, things were always so uncertain with recessions and all, and I was too stressed out, and lonely, and unhappy. So I gave my job up, gave away my money to charity and came here, to live like a simple Mexican villager. I will farm, fish, take long walks and siestas, play music, serenade pretty Latinas and have a full and rich life!"
"That's a lot of things to do", wondered the old man, still not very convinced.
"Oh and I also plan to write a book about my life and experiences here, and you people are going to be the main characters in it", the upbeat American added.
"What are you going to do with this book of yours once it's written?", the old Mexican clearly didn't think that books were very useful.
"I'll publish it of course! You'll see it'll be a bestseller!"
"So what if it becomes a bestseller?"
"Then it will sell well and I'll make millions, of course!", the American was beginning to get irritated with these obvious questions that he hadn't even felt necessary to think about.
"And what are you going to do with your millions?"
"Oh I'm going to lead a comfortable life without having to worry again! I'll buy a beach house in Florida, drive good cars, play.....", the American man stopped in his tracks because the Mexican man was rolling on the beach laughing his ass off as if he had just met the most ridiculous guy ever.
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