I had quite a pleasant afternoon with a friend of mine on the Wednesday. We had a lunch at Chinatown nearby my workplace, and he is also working with a bank nearby. They serve quite selection of Malay foods and the price is actually quite reasonable. Anther good thing about this place is they do allow smoking at most of their tables if not all. Being here in Singapore, places that allow smoking are actually coming to an extinction, and finding one is actually quite nice. So we had a fabulous smoke after our meals. Both of us smoke a 7 year old Fonseca Cadet, courtesy of my friend.
My friend did quite a fair bit of talking about investment products that he is planning to buy. Don't wanna bother you guys with the details of the products(also due to I didn't understand them that much in the first place). But at the end of the discussion of those investment products he said that we don't really need to be that rich, and at the end of the day, how much money is enough? True enough, and he shared with me a story about a fisherman and a business school student.
So there is this business school student, he met a fisherman watching his kids playing. He asked the fisherman what is he doing? The fisherman said that he just finished with his daily fishing and now watching his kids playing. After that he and his kids will go home and eat dinner that his wife cooks. He asks the fisherman what is he going to do tomorrow? the fisherman answers, "the same thing. Fish, watch my kids play, and my wife will cook my dinner for me".
The business school student says that instead of just doing that, he should make sure that tomorrow's catch is double than today, and make sure that the catch amount grows each day.So that the fisherman will have more income everyday. Fisherman says, "Good idea. But what shall I do at the end of the day?". Business school student answered, "You can go home, watch your kids play, and have your wife cooks dinner for you."
The business school student continues with his suggestion. He said that with the extra income that fisherman gets, he should saves up money, buy another boat and employ someone to fish for him. Making sure that the amount of catch increasing everyday, he can keep expanding his business and buys new boats. The fisherman looking interested and says, "Very good idea, but what will I do at the end of the day?". Business student answered, "You can still go home, watch your kids play, and your wife will cook dinner for you."
The business school student comes up with his closing proposal. He said that once the fisherman's business grew big enough, he will help the fisherman to make his business public, he will help IPO his company, and by that time the fisherman should be worth hundreds of millions. The fisherman agrees that it is a very good idea and asked what will he do at the end of the day.The student says, "You can watch your kids play, and your wife will cook dinner for you."
To cut the story short, the final question the fisherman asks the business student is, "Am I not doing them now?". So there you go. There are a lot of morals in this story that you can pick up, but I just wanna highlight that sometimes, in our pursue of of wealth and riches, we forgot to enjoy these "simple things" in life that actually matter the most. I don't have kids to watch them playing nor a wife to cook for me, but I go back home, read some books, watch some shows, stalk people in fb, smoke cigars or other menial things. But damn I enjoy every second of those time.
Of course you can always argue the simplicity of the argument from the business student, and there are ways he can debate and make his case stronger and more solid, but that this story is pretty much made up to serve the moral I just mentioned. Shit there are a lot of shitty Malay drama in the TV nowadays and they sure as hell has a shittier story and shittier morals that are pretty much destroying our newer generations. This fisherman v business student story beats the crap out of any Malay dramas/movies in my book.
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