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A successful businessman on vacation was at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were sev
by TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
A successful businessman on vacation was at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The businessman complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.
The fisherman proudly replied, “Every morning, I go out in my boat for 30 minutes to fish. I’m the best fisherman in the village”.
The businessman, perplexed, then asks the fisherman “If you’re the best, why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish? What do you do the rest of the day?”
The fisherman replied “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, spend quality time with my wife, and every evening we stroll into the village to drink wine and play guitar with our friends. I have a full and happy life.”
The businessman scoffed, “I am successful CEO and have a talent for spotting business opportunities. I can help you be more successful. 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 with many fishermen. Instead of selling your catch to just your friends, you can scale to sell fish to thousands. You could leave this small coastal fishing village and move to the big city, where you can oversee your growing empire.”
The fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”
To which the businessman replied, “15 – 20 years.”
“But what then?” Asked the fisherman.
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 – 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, spend time with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your friends.”
- sidlls 5y agoThat's a cute story. However there are vast differences in reality. The fisherman is likely an uncultured bigot and xenophobe with life experiences that reinforce this condition, and who will suffer terribly from the ailments of aging that the businessman's wealth can afford respite from. For example.
- genericone 5y agoIt looks like elitism never changes, and rural people will never shake the scorn of city people, internet or no internet. Unless that's sarcasm of course.
- machello13 5y agoI think the scorn goes both ways.
- covidthrow 5y agoPerhaps, but what I've witnessed: (in the broadest strokes of unspecificity) Rural: "I don't like what the city folk are doing. They should change." Urban: "I don't like what the country folks are doing. This is how we should change them."
- genericone 5y agoYou're getting a tug-of-war of downvotes/upvotes, let me see if I can expand too: Rural: "The city-living ways don't work out here so well, but there's too many of you guys for me to even begin to tell you how to act or what to do, so as a compromise just let me be" City: "Rural folk live really unsustainably/unculturably/deplorably but they don't know any better, its up to us to make them understand. Anyway the urban center provides more value than what the countryside provides, we should be dictating the path of progress in this county/state/country/continent. The locus of power has always been around cities though, so that is where elites and elitism will always centralize.
- joejerryronnie 5y agoYou’re assuming the CEO is not an uncultured bigot and xenophobe with life experiences that reinforce this condition.
- sidlls 5y agoHe's almost certainly exposed to more cultures, though you are right: he could be extremely bigoted and xenophobic. It's just less likely, even if marginally.
- nicbou 5y agoI've heard this story so often that if I just say "the fisherman story", most people know I mean this one. I enjoy a lifestyle similar to that of the fisherman. My humble little website works well, and though I could build other things, I'd have to start setting an alarm and making phone calls again. I'd rather not. If you reach a point in your life where you can stop turning the crank and still enjoy a good life, by all means do it.
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago> I've heard this story so often that if I just say "the fisherman story", most people know I mean this one. I almost posted the "parable of the stonecutter" too.
- purple_ferret 5y agoBut the fisherman rents and when his generous landlord sells to a real estate corp that capitalizes on market inefficiencies, he'll find himself out on the street and replaced by a remote software developer. When he gets heart disease in 20 years, he'll find himself in an underfunded public hospital too. When his kids grow up and he wants to send them to uni, he'll find himself taking out a 100K loan. Then he'll find himself fishing all day long just to pay off the interest on his debt/to stay afloat and he'll regret no capitalizing on his younger days, but it's too late because all the fish are gone thanks to foreign fishing trawlers.
- ptr2voidStar 5y agoWow, this is such a harsh (but true) rebuttal to that story (which I've heard dozens of times before). It is a bit Pollyannaish, but I guess, it comes from a good place
- cm2012 5y agoThe reason to accumulate wealth is for security. The fisherman's current income could disappear any day. He could be injured, the area could be overfished, a glut of foreign fish could reduce prices, etc. This is just the story of the ant and the grasshopper in reverse.