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?”
classic Brazilian story, probably also present in other cultures. Someone found the English version, but I could not identify the translator
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Beautiful story, love it.
Such a pitty there are so many “businessman” in the world!
Love
As melhores coisas da vida são as mais simples, devemos sempre preservá-las!!!
Vamos tentar viver como o pescador e quem sabe assim seremos mais felizes.
Yeah, wouldn’t you like to join the fisherman? Live in barrio…take a nap…one more nap…ahh…catch the fish…take nap… I need one more nap.
Beautiful! Let’s go!!!
I heard this story when I was very young…Only the characters were Indian farmer and British merchant :)… Lovely standpoint..really!Something to learn from… :)
e’ molto bello questo racconto,….Lo straordinario risiede nella semplicita’,il capire che sono parte del tempo,ha fatto sii che la mia attenzione volgesse al ricercarmi attimi d’amore condiviso, con le persone a cui tengo e tutto cio’ che mi circonda. Un tempo appartenevo al voler diventare,un giorno ho rivisto le nuvole spostate dal vento sulla mia testa….allora ho compreso che era tanto tempo che non alzavo gli occhi in alto….Che bella sensazione non lo facevo da quando ero bambina…ora e’ un modo meraviglioso quando sono nel caos, di sentirmi parte del mondo…i miei occhi cercano la semplicita’…ciao caro amico*
Dear Paulo and others…
It feels like it has the same message as the alchemist!!
Santiago was travelling round the world to get closer to his dream but it ended at the same spot were he began.
But the fisherman already knows this, he is aware that he is living the dream. Maybe the fisherman is Santiago ;0)
Love
Sari
Hello
Paul’m your fan, I love your book. I can not explain is how most had already experienced some thing, it’s weird I know ….
Keep it up .. Congratulations
Pandora (sorry the english)
Great story indeed!
What am I doing this for?
Looking too much after the future there will be no more time left for the present. I want to never forget this important question. I ask this myself always, esp when I have to take some important decisions.
Man doesn’t need to store material, job, information or whatever else it is to be happier. All he needs is what he needs nothing more and nothing less.
Let the fishes to the happy fisherman and the hard working to the successful businessman.
In my life I’d like to have times like the businessman and like the fisherman too. But lets see what life has reserved for me and I for myself.
Love
Olta
Oh, I loved this one.
Querido Paulo,
Excelente texto, será que dá para fazer o dinheiro trabalhar por nós, até mais
i read this at the right time..been putting of spending time with the people in my life so that i can work and achieve my dreams then spend time with them. m glad i read this story.
Just excelent, but it’s not easy to live like that every wear, but the concept is true. More you work less you have time for oders and you… In some places you could do nothing without money…
Have a good day Paulo
few havn’t heard these ! many times before.
few seem to understand, for ain’t the rat race on ???
why is it like this, we have heard them before, in our heart we feel they speak some truth to us; but not enough to make us let go of all that is unnecessary? “yeah hangama ya khuda kya hai ” ( lines from another great poet Ghalib, if Rumi was more spiritual than real, then Ghalib was more real than spiritual, although both were spekaing from teh same platform)
love
Very Good Story…
We make plans and say: when I will achieve this or have that, then… I will rest, enjoy and feel happy..
This is the greatest illusion we have in the three-dimensional cosmos, in which we are ‘prisoners’ of space and time. We create with our creative fantasy out life! We ‘imagine’ and then try to bring and live in reality our dreams! We need all our mind /power and heart/desire in order to achieve our goals! Some dreams need much time, efforts, education, devotion. We have to set our priorities. To keep balance and never forget that ‘WE ARE NOTHING WITHOUT LOVE’. We must remember that ‘Everything flows’= Τα πάντα ρεί.
See everything as for the … first and last time.
LOVE,
Thelma xxx
talk about full circles, or going around in circles :-) brilliant story! tinha que ser brasileira, pela enorme creatividade!
obrigado por partilhar!
Nice but something is missing!
few more explaining lines from fisherman in the end would be better impact.
for that u need to carry forward the dilogue –
see that fisherman is simple chap he can only ask questions, he is no Paulo who can explain. cutting the crap, cut to scene
The fisherman was puzzled, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”
The businessman laughs again, “It is, but it is not the same, u simple man ”
The fisherman was puzzled some more “how?” he asks.
the busnessman says “…..”"”"
something like this, ……i mean what kind of business man is he who cannot ‘convince’ a simple village folk to see his ‘light’; look what businesses are doing to village folk all over. Before deciding to develop, should people not agree upon what should be called development, just cutting down trees, destroying forests, hills, natural habitats and replacing them with concrete to fulfill man’s greed – should that be called development. sorry folks got carried away.
love
Rich Man is not one who has the most; but one who needs the least…
The fisherman’s life is a dream of everyone of us I guess. Success and fame are not the purpose of life… Inner peace and simple joys are more valuable.
La felicidad, la paz, la plenitud, es un estado mental; a medida que te acercas a lo alto las cosas materiales pierden importancia porque tu vida es plena, te sacia, si no es así se puede perder todo lo que se tiene por querer más y más, y la sed no se saciará nunca porque no depende de lo que tengas, es un estado mental.
Perdón, la felicidad, la paz, la plenitud, son un estado mental.
Hasta pronto, supongo que el día que deje de buscar encontraré, ahora quizá la sed me haga buscar, moverme, pero ya estoy fuera del desierto y prefiero la vida a las cosas.
Un saludo.
Beautiful……….
Live like a tree
Grow up to skies….but don’t forget your roots …
for without them you will not live to reach skies
Keep writing Sir…like a lighthouse showing us path to shore
O Sir!!! great stuff!!!
This story once again pushes me towards thinking as to how tough our life is….. I don’t say it coz of the difficulties we face in life….. no….. never!!!
I say this thinking about how important it is for us all to know these facts of our life…
I say this thinking about the importance of realization of our dreams without which, our life will be just nothing….
And I say this thinking about the necessity to know the right point when one has to stop, else everything achieved again goes on to be meaningless…..
Buddha defined the mediocre path to be the right one. But again, is mediocricity alwways able to satisfy us???
And a lot more questions still disturb my mind reading the story….. Thanks Sir reminding me of the “STOP” point…
But the questions still haunt me :(………
the sense of inner content. the farmer was quick enough to know what life is at end when you are satisfied so started living the same every day… wouldn’t it be nice if everyone on this world leave with whatever is required for him for living. the dream for being rich is implanted in our culture. as a child when u are asked in a school, everyone laughs when u say u want to be a happy person, instead u have to say i will be a businessman, doctor, engineer and be the miserable person.
hahaha. in the end life is just an endless loop.
“waking up early in the morning, catching a few fish, returning home, having a nice afternoon nap, joining buddies, play the guitar, sing and dance.”
it shows a good balance of everyday-life what probably cannot easily be managed by many of us. awareness helps me to step out of such a busy time, and live such a life at least for a weekend (vacation) … :o)
the story reflects also a good ecological balance: man takes only what s/he needs from nature; nature can always recover from this.
however, subsistence living is not just having fisherman’s beautiful life. getting some fish for the pots: the food must be cleaned, prepared, preserved. one needs to adjust to the seasons or weather to get the food. if there is a hurrican, catching the fish will not work. they will be hungry those days. if we hunt an animal, the animal must be cleaned right away, the meat put into pieces, and then carried on the back out of the wilderness back to the house. preparation & preservation of this food puts stress on everybody.
the fisherman’s life reflects our ancestor’s lives when they were hunters & gatherers. our bodies remember this time’ they are adjusted for it. this is what is still our connection to them.
villages that live such a life today, have here problems with infrastructure, no clean water, sewage, garbage disposal (and consequently problems with several infectious diseases), no electricity, no healthcare, schooling. a lot of things that come from the business man…..
what if you take the fisherman as a symbol? What if the hidden meaning behind the fisherman is not the fisherman itself but a modest man? I don’t think that modesty will stop technological advance, i.e. healthcare, internet etc. On the contrary, I even believe that there would be positive side effects.
The story is about the right balance. And that balance that I count as the balance of the “world” is same for everyone – for the businessman as well as for the fisherman.
WOW !!! Like the simplicity of life and how we complicate them, only to come back to the simple life later.
Oh, what a lovely story!
I was the fisherman for a while, but in order to make my heart content I had to choose and leave behind my place. God taught me how to let go of material things first and set people free afterwards.
He put me on the road again.I’ve no complaints. I renounced what I was asked to.
Someday I’ll be the fisherman again, only that this time in the right place.
I’m a young person in search of my life…
This story made me realize how hard it is to unlearn everything a north american society has taught us. We simply are educated to have a Ph.D. in business management, start a family, work hard, then we can enjoy life.
Maybe life just isn’t like that.
But I’m afraid to create my own reality because of my circumstances and where I’m from. How do I believe in myself and take the different path?
Remember life is short – you never know when you will die. When you are old you maybe cannot enjoy life anymore because you are ill and if you die before ritirement you have never enjoyed life.
I also love this story, have known it for a long time in a German version, written in 1963 by Heinrich Böll (nobel-prize winner)as a satirical provocation to read aloud on a 1.Mai celebration.
It’s called “Anekdote zur Senkung der Arbeitsmoral” and has also been translated. (In English it might be called “Anecdote to the Decline of the Work Ethic”)
It has also been made into a film and theatrical performances.
This is a very inspiring blog
Many greetings
This story hints at what is wrong with this world today. Man’s biggest enemy is in himself. In the spiritual world, we cannot see the players, but we do play in the battle. There are two items that mankind has neglected since he was created out of the earth. One is a lack of love for other souls (The businessman loved money more than spending time with his friends and family). The other is greed within. The lack of love in this world is a form of greed, and this story tells it very clearly.
I got up a few minutes ago,turned on the computer and checked out twitter.
I really appreciate for feeling something through your blog’s reading.
It helps me to start today peacefully.
I love that I am at a stage in my life where being less frantic workwise is best ..but I don’t have it down to a fine art yes like this fisherman !
Love
Breda
Que es la Felicidad.
R- Es un estado.
Que es ser Feliz.
R-Disfrutar de las cosas simples y bellas de la Vida al lado del o de los SERES que AMAMOS, o en Soledad tambien claro si sabes como disfrutarla y Muy cerca a Dios.
salu2.33.p.Rodoldfo&Monica.
Good morning sir, (Jakarta says 7.10 am)
In my religion as a Moslem, we do believe that a good life was not counted in how much we do good deeds, but of how sincere earnestness that we do good deeds. Success is not counted by how rich we own things, a good heart itself will bring a good fortune. Life is not only ranges from the material world, but life is about the way we learn to understand nature, the worship of God, and relate well with others especially family. If a Fisherman’s say, “Isn’t that what I am doing now?”, well good fortune for him.
sincerely.
Paulo,
I love this story and I put it to good use after the first time I read it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You know how to put things just right in a parable and teach us so that the message goes right to the core. If you would have been preachy or didactic, I probably would have not listened.
Love your stories….and you…. keep writing from your heart…my Magus ;-)
Love and warm light to you,
Lainee
Yeah… that’s how all the great empires in history were built. Alexander the Great said: “Why conquer all that land and kill all those enemies? Naah… I’ll just play my flute and dance throughout the night. Life is beautiful.”
That’s what Bill Gates said: “Build software and take it to world monopoly? Set up a charity foundation and pay billions for health research? Naah… I’ll just smoke some weed, life is beautiful.”
That’s what Steve Jobs said: “Oh, come on, why build a fanatic follower base, why build game-changing products, why all the trouble? Let’s just sit and do nothing. Life is beautiful.”
Beautiful story.
Makes me wonder when it became a gift simply to be able to see clearly.
Adorei, Paulo
Existem pessoas que procuram os caminhos mais difíceis para encontrar o equilíbrio. Outras já nasçem com dircernimento de um conhecimento profundo, onde tudo torna-se simplificado,aúreo,pleno. Que belo exemplo deu este pescador!
I had read this…in somewhere that I didn’t remember well…in your biography? I don’t know.
Anyway…the life is so simple and also complicated, depends on the mind….the power of thinking!
Good luck to every body!
“… after that, you can live like a king in your own house…”
But we were all born to be kings and queens of our own lives, it’s just that some people get it and live in the moment, while others wait for that ‘someday’ when they think everything would fall into place.
Carpe diem! Seize the day!
Excellent story!The fisherman is actually living his dream.. most people say they will do this or that when they retire, but he already does that.. i bow to him, he DID IT! Life for him is like vacation, because he loves his work, he loves every minute of his life..
Interesting picture.. in the beginning, seeing the tail of the fish ,it resembled to me the crescent moon, but then looking again, i saw a bow and a string (the body of the fish) targeting..yes, i know it’s big :o) .. maybe it is because the dream is big …but that is the meaning of the picture for me today..
I am targeting at my dream :o)
Love and Gratitude
Annie
PS! Advice can be good, but sometimes it can be a challenge sent to us, wether we know what we want or not, or wether we stand our ground, or not…
When you advise someone something, try to keep in mind – is your advice based on your own experience, is it only suggestive, is it agressive, and what is that you are trying to accomplish with it.
If I were a businessman, I’d try to make the person “count their assets” (read: analyse their strong and weak sides), to “find the gold mine” (read: to find out what is your dream in life) and to “scetch a blueprint” (read: to have at least some kind of an idea of the surroundings).
Love,
L.
Yes.
Why should we postpone what we could do today? Why postpone feeling joy, sharing love and paying attention to our surroundings?
Always do what is your hearts desire, do not jump out of your skin to please others, stay focused, live so that you may realise your dream(s), and while you are on the journey of life – try to enjoy it!
Peacefully – I have a vision in front of my eyes – a sea of waves with the calming sounds and a person, smiling, looking at the sea.
Each day can contain beauty, if we care to see…
This is exactly what’s happening to us, the fulltime work is attaching you mostely to the company system, like being attached from your head into the Matrix ( the movie ), you’re inside a system for work to keep you up, so you work many hours to make some money to rent a home and work again to pay bills, and to pay your car installment, to renew your cell phone with 3g one or iphone, and this is example of the wrong life anyway, that’s how commercials and life drive you to do, I was wonder, why we work ? I found we work to get the money? And why we get the money? We get the money to pay stuff and get another stuff? So why we get stuff although we suffer in work to get that money? We get the stuff to feel the happiness, then I said, it will be great if we focus from the beginning on the happiness, happiness is what we think, so we can make our life just happy without all that hassle .
Me encantó la historia!!! no pudo ser mas acorde a lo que deseo en la vida..
Thank you for sharing this story. It speaks volumes today while in the midst of such a busy schedule.
I super love this post.
Ambition can be blinding. Sometimes, we fail to see the beauty of what we already have…
El que nace pa´ martillo del cielo le caen los clavos . . .
A life of worth whth fulfilment and purpose.Always accompaning life with love,family and friends.Thanks Paulo
Queria hacer un comentario sobre el articulo de el arte de la paz , que salió el dommingo dia 6 de septiembre el dominical XL semanal del grupo vocento
A lo largo de la historia , hay descripciones de seres humanos, que cuando escriben, parece que describen una experiencia clara , por lo que hablan.
Creo que en estos momentos, tambien es posible tener esa experiencia descrita anteriormente, por otros ,solo por estar vivo. Las ocho fuerzas de la que habla, EN EL ARTICULO no es más que una division de un eje troncal que nace en un mismo sitio”EL ALIENTO DE LA VIDA” cuando uno contacta , y se hace consciente de él ,todo se aclara, se ilumina y la vida se llena de respuestas y alegria. Cuando te sientes gratificado, te sientes apradecido , y puedes expresarlo
Hay una frase del TAO, que lo resume perfectamente
“EL VERDADERO TAO NO SE PUEDE PRONUNCIAR CON ESTOS LABIOS”
Solo cuando se siente se comprende
los libros solo describen experiencias ¿Cuantos libros deberias leer sobre la comida, para calmar tu hambre cuando tienes ganas de comer? ¿cuantos libros tendrias que comerte , para quitarte el hambre? ¿ importaria tener una enciclopedia sobre el agua en medio del desierto , o seria suficiente ,agua , aunque no tuvieras ninguna clase de envase, aunque no tuvieras manos, o fueras ciego?
Cuando un bebe grita cuando tiene sed,¿ cuanto tiempo perderias en expilicarle lo importante que es el agua, su formulacion, y todas las explicaciones que quieras? O le darias el agua, y el entendería QUE ESO ES LO QUE NECESITA
Beautiful…
As always..
Paulo Coelho = Awesomeness..
I’m posting it on my blog..
http://whatdidiobservetoday.blogspot.com
I love this story! I’d heard it before, but it never fails to have the same impact on me. Thanks for sharing!
Well, that is someone who has got the right balance.He is enjoying LIFE.What a revelation!
..”fishing, retire, move to a house, return home to play with his kids, have a nice afternoon nap with your wife, and when evening comes, you can join your buddies for a drink, play the guitar and dance throughout the night.”
I see…he is Brazilian…:)
He can do all that in a day? Must be well organised.
I am heading for Brazil..
“Dear Santiago,….
x
ha ha!! I totally love this…
I wish I could be the fisherman…
Thanks aksh for your reply.
sorry to say but fisherman was not explaining and you were more confusing.
anyways,
thanks again for the reply!
Hermosas palabras tuyas.
Gracias y sigue con tus pensamientos.
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