More about Fish

"Fish will be the last to discover water. "

That's not exactly how Einstein put it, but that's how we like to say it around here.

If you're not one who waxes allegorical, let me explain. Each of us swims in a personal soup that is invisible to us. The soup consists of all the blind spots that cause us to make the same mistakes over and over. Ironically, other people can easily see the blind spots that we cannot.

Discovering water is probably the most difficult and challenging task of existence. Separating ourselves from our water is frightening because it feels so much a part of us. But until we see the water, we can't see the world of new possibilities that opens up.

Discovering water can come about in many ways, such as:

• a crisis or traumatic event shakes you loose from all your previous assumptions about life
  
• while reading a book, some idea strikes you so hard that it dislodges you from your usual ways of thinking
• you ask someone you trust to help you see what you yourself cannot see

An example. A mother is in my office complaining about her teenager. She's frustrated that all her efforts to be a good mother seem to be having no effect. What she can't see is this: it's not what she's doing that's sabotaging her results, it's that she's doing it at all. She's doing the work that her child needs to be doing.

Another example. A woman is asking me for the twentieth time, "What is it that I do that make my husband lash out at me like that?" I say, "He's got an anger problem. It really doesn't seem to matter what you do!"


I used to have a water garden containing brightly colored koi. One day, glancing out from my kitchen window, I was horrified to see one of the fish flopping around on the grass. Fortunately, I was able to rescue it and return it alive and safe to the pond.

Now that's a fish who has discovered water!

Copyright starfishdoc 2008

If you like my fishy stories, don't miss this one.