Fish and Sharks

"I left my head and my heart on the dance floor," Telephone by Lady GaGa feat. Beyonce.

Here's another story I got from Life is an Open Secret by Sis Zabrina. It (sort of) goes like this:

Once upon a time, there was a magical land far away called Japun. The people there loved fresh fish. It was their rice to Malaysians, salads to vegetarians, and peanuts for anorexics. And they really kept high standards on the freshness of their aqua companions.

But because the Japunese population did not embrace celibacy, their land got highly populated. More people meant more mouths to feed, and that meant more fish to catch. Unfortunately, the waters around Japun were not that highly populated with fish. Thus, ships got bigger and went farther away to catch those gilled-swimmers.

But this presented a problem. The farther the fishermen went, the more time it took for them to return to the enchanted land of Japun. If it took more than a couple of days for the ship to return to land, the fish caught wouldn't be that fresh anymore. And you know how the Japunese get when they don't get their sushi fresh. Various websites were set up to speak up against the not-so-fresh fish and uncountable amounts of forums were opened to voice out their dissatisfaction.

Thus, the fishermen decided to install freezers on their boats to solve this problem. The caught fish would be frozen in hopes of preserving the much loved freshness of the finned-meat. Alas, the Japunese people could taste the difference between fresh fish and and frozen fish. They didn't like it at all. People took to the streets and conducted demonstrations, with their signs and banners, their over-zealous leader leading the march with a voice-volume-enhancer in hand, shouting "Down with frozen fish! Down with frozen fish!"

The fishermen quickly came up with another way to solve the problem. They installed fish tanks in their boats, and the fish caught would be kept fin-to-fin to be kept alive until they were brought to the shore. The fish would trash about at first, but after a while they would get tired and bored and not move much, but the good news was that they'd be still be alive. They gave themselves a pat on the back for this genius-seeming answer.

But, as expected by my smart readers, the Japunese people could tell the difference, and they didn't like these "tank fish". The fish hadn't moved around for days, so they had lost their fresh taste. Some even say that it tasted worse than the frozen fish. To show their anger, they burned down fish markets, took fishermen as hostages, robbed banks and looted electronic stores, while the suicide count in the country took a drastic shot upwards.

This worried the fishermen. It made them afraid and pointed their fish-odoured fingers towards each other, since nobody really knew who gave the prior suggestion. Then, in the most trying of times, a genius idea was hatched. The suggestion was to put a small shark in each tank so that those fish wouldn't be static and distasteful. Of course they would lose a few fish to the shark, but overall, the fish would still be lively and fresh, since they needed to run, eh, swim away from the shark for their survival. Plus, what was a few fish compared to their family's safety, right? So they gave it a shot.

This worked, and the Japunese people were satisfied with the quality of the fish that was coming their way. They stopped all their emotional demonstrations and peace was restored. Oh, and they all lived happily ever after.

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Of course, I have put my own spin on this story. But you get the point of the story right?

The adversities we face in life are actually those sharks, and we are like the fish. Those sharks keep us awake, alive, vibrant and active (to borrow the words of Sis Zabrina). They keep us from getting too comfortable with ourselves, making us un-fresh, stale and cause nationwide panic.

Those who are sluggish will be gulped down by the shark, and those that gape at others who have been gulped will also be gulped. Doesn't that make you want to say "Gulp!"

So, be thankful for those sharks in life, but don't stay still and do nothing when they come. Swim, find your way and survive to swim another day to be fresh in order to make people happy.

Cheers!