Sunday, July 22, 2012

Big Fish, Little Fish

You’re a fish in a pond. It doesn’t matter what your size. If all the others get scooped up, are you going to see yourself as the lone survivor, or the biggest fish in the pond?

There is a point at which taking charge becomes leadership. It happens when ideas and actions coalesce into forward, not retrograde, movement. When that moment is achieved, change happens. Progress becomes the signature of the leader. When nothing happens, or when things seem to move backwards, rot sets in.

Watching fish in a pond, seeing them move about in what looks like Brownian motion, is like watching politicians. Most seem unable to understand the difference between leadership and opposition. There is only so much food, so much oxygen in the pond. There are plenty of open mouths, lots of flapping gills, but no progress. Every fish seems focused only on its own stomach, with little care or concern for the others who must live or die in the same water. When one gets hooked, pulled up to be a carnivore’s dinner, the others seem content to swim on, happy only that they were not caught, not pulled from the water. People, on the other hand, are not fish. We should be able to understand that we are related in many ways to the others in our pond, and that we need to think beyond the next mouthful we are asked to swallow.

It seems to me that today we have far too many fish who want to be the biggest in the pond, even if it is because they would be the only one left.

1 comment:

  1. As always, Paul, you've given me food for thought (pun both intended and unintended :-)

    Peace,
    Beth

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