The Investment Banker and The Mexican Fisherman

This is a well-known story circulating the internet for many years. I read it over 10 years ago. It is a good story, I like it. But the lesson the story tries to convey has a huge flaw. The poor fisherman at the start of the story and the millionaire businessman he will become at the end of the story may have a very similar lifestyle, but the similarity ends there. There are huge differences. One is living day to day with no financial security, whereas other is living with no worry in total freedom with enough financial backing. Which is better or worse? That's for the readers to decide.

 

Poor, no financial security? Maybe, maybe not. The story doesn't disclose this, it is just a common reader assumption.

Also a reader assumption. Which does not fit a great many who outwardly appear to be in that position.

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Another angle to this: remember the political talk blow-up a few years back, when a Seattle Public Schools website listed "future time orientation" as a form of "cultural racism"?

 

Exactly. That's the power of storytelling. What lessons to be learned, which is not singular, are totally on the readers' imagination.

 

There is no flaw if you know the meaning. Wealth is more than paper money or shiny metals. The story is trying to tell you to relax and dont need so much. The fisherman was already wealthy.

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He who knows he has enough is rich.
Yap, that's the ideological meaning of "wealth". But would everyone agree that is the universal truth? I just don't think so.

 

I enjoyed the story - thank you for posting it.

For me it reminds me of the glass half filled with water - One person going through life with a chip on their shoulder and despondent because they only have a glass half filled with water and another going through life satisfied and with great joy knowing they have a glass half filled with water.

The morale of many of these stories is very similar - life is what you make of it.

The Beatles a famous singing group from years past used to write songs that incorporated this thinking - Love is all you need was one another song had a verse " and in the end the love you get is equal to the love you give " ( if my failing memory serves me right).

 

ah, the songs are great, but the beatles were like most others, money hungry never have enough, never satisfied.
when asked, they would always say. 'it's just a song'.
could be what drives many to the pursuit of perfection.

 

Done!

I live in a small southern town, work in a non-salaried position, and this last weekend I took a siesta and played with grandchildren.
I COMPLETELY understand the story.....but then I grew up with two relatively rich aunts/uncles (low 7 figures) and two relatively poor ones (SS provides most of their income) and I learned at a VERY early on which of these are the more "FORTUNEate" and have more or less patterned my life accordingly.

However (comma!) most of us in this forum start out as being fabulously wealthy as compared to those in other parts of the globe - some parts of which I've had the opportunity to see first-hand.

David Gordon's paper, "Indicators of Poverty and Hunger", for the United Nations, further defines absolute poverty as the absence of any two of the following eight basic needs:

• Food: Body mass index must be above 16.
• Safe drinking water: Water must not come solely from rivers and ponds, and must be available nearby (fewer than 15 minutes' walk each way).
• Sanitation facilities: Toilets or latrines must be accessible in or near the home.
• Health: Treatment must be received for serious illnesses and pregnancy.
• Shelter: Homes must have fewer than four people living in each room. Floors must not be made of soil, mud, or clay.
• Education: Everyone must attend school or otherwise learn to read.
• Information: Everyone must have access to newspapers, radios, televisions, computers, or telephones at home.
• Access to services: This item is undefined by Gordon, but normally is used to indicate the complete panoply of education, health, legal, social, and financial (credit) services.

 

Sounds like an old Benny Hill routine.

You should get a job.
Why?
So you can make money.
Why?
So you can save money.
Why?
So you can retire.
Why?
So you won't have to work anymore.
But I'm not working now!