I’ve been procrastinating on writing a new blog post because there is so much to write about that sometimes I get overwhelmed and just don’t write about anything. So tonight I decided to procrastinate by reading my email. After scanning through dozens of “will get to those later” emails I decided to open one I found from Daneé Shows. Daneé is my best friend from college and rarely emails me so by now I should know that all her emails are either going to be profound, or something about the two things she knows I love, love, love, surfing & snowboarding. Tonight unfortunately her email turned out to be from the profound category and therefore did not help me at all in the procrastination department…
A few nights ago I watched the new Michael Moore film, Capitalism: A Love Story, which focuses on corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans. This is an amazing film that touches the very essence of what is wrong with America. (No offense. I love America but we are far from perfect.) I sniffled as I watched a family lose their house in foreclosure and cried as I watched them desperately accept $1,000 from their lender as payment to clean out and burn their last belongings, leaving them with nothing and nowhere to go.
In the film there is also a story about how Wal-Mart profited from a life insurance policy it took out on a young woman who died unexpectedly leaving behind her young family. Stop. Read that again. Yes, Wal-Mart and many other huge corporations have taken out life insurance policies on employees, somehow feeling they deserve to benefit from the death of their workers. My mom recently died from cancer. If I found out some corporation made thousands or millions from her death it would take every single one of my friends holding me down to keep me from burning their building to the ground! (OK I would never really do something like that, but that’s how I would feel).
And in one of my favorite scenes from the movie, Moore drives an armored bank truck up to the front doors of American International Group, announcing that he is there to collect the taxpayers’ money that they received from the $700 billion government bail out. So to put it in perspective the same people who are loosing their homes because they can’t afford their mortgage are forced to pay taxes which go to bailing out the richest companies in the US. How is that even close to fair or right?
Anyway I won’t go on and on (because I could)…. The point of writing this is to encourage you to watch the movie, if you haven’t already, and to remind you to stop and really take some time to think about what you want out of life. I’m no expert on what you should or should not do in life and I’m certainly not rich but I’m beyond happy and I feel blessed every day to be alive. I think one of the worst things about our society and the one thing that is holding all of us back from being truly happy is our greediness and obsession with material possessions and having more, more, more. I’m not saying being succesful is bad. I hope to be very succesful one day, but not at the expense of others and not at the expense of enjoying the journey. I’ll keep trying till the day I die to achieve my dreams, but if I’m never “successful” in the eyes of our society, I will still be happy because I’m already doing what I love.
The following story is from Daneé’s email to me:
A boat docked in a tiny Mexican fishing village.
A tourist complimented the local fishermen on the quality of their fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.
“Not very long,” they answered in unison.
“Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?”
The fishermen explained that their small catches were sufficient to meet their needs and those of their families.
“But what do you do with the rest of your time?”
“We sleep late, fish a little, play with our children, and take siestas with our wives. In the evenings, we go into the village to see our friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs. We have a full life.”
The tourist interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat.”
“And after that?”
“With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant.
You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City , Los Angeles , or even New York City !
From there you can direct your huge new enterprise.”
“How long would that take?”
“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years.” replied the tourist.
“And after that?”
“Afterwards? Well my friend, that’s when it gets really interesting, ” answered the tourist, laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start buying and selling stocks and make millions!”
“Millions? Really? And after that?” asked the fishermen.
“After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.”
“With all due respect sir, but that’s exactly what we are doing now. So what’s the point of wasting twenty-five years?”
