#39 | Recognize the Water
There’s an old story about a young fish who swims off to explore a new lake. Along the way, the fish meets an older fish and asks, “How’s the water here?” The older fish looks over, puzzled, and replies, “What water?”
The fish has been swimming in it its entire life. Never known anything else, so it doesn’t even see it anymore.
Most of us are exactly like that older fish.
If you live in a developed country, you are, statistically, among the most fortunate people who have ever existed on this planet. Right now, more than twenty four thousand people will die today from starvation. Meanwhile, many of us complain about traffic on our way to work, in a car with a sound system, air conditioning, powered windows, and seats more comfortable than most beds in human history. A trip that would have taken days by horse and buggy, or on foot, now takes an hour. And still, so often, there’s no satisfaction. No pause. No gratitude. Just the water we’ve stopped noticing.
Here’s something worth sitting with. If you gave the richest people in the world the choice between their entire fortune or being twenty years younger, most would give up ninety percent of what they own without hesitation. Youth, health, and time cannot be bought back at any price. If you’re young and healthy, you are already holding a fortune that money cannot purchase. Full potential, and the runway to use it.
So why don’t we feel it?
Often, it comes down to two quiet thieves. The first is idleness. An idle mind with no goal, no challenge, and nothing to look forward to tends to drift toward complaint rather than appreciation. The second is a steady diet of negativity, particularly the news, which is built to hook you through fear and outrage, not to reflect the actual balance of good and bad in the world.
The fix isn’t complicated, but it does take intention.
Here is your reflection for today. Take ten minutes, sit somewhere quiet, and truly let this sink in. Whatever your age, whatever your health, whatever your circumstances, there is still something available to you today, a small joy, a connection, a chance to share what you know with someone else.
Two things to carry forward. Each morning, write down three to five specific things you’re grateful for. Not vague ones, specific ones. And second, revive one small project from your past, something creative you once loved, painting, writing, music, whatever it was, and give it fifteen minutes this week.
And here’s your question to sit with. What is one small thing within your reach today that could bring you, or someone else, a little more joy?