Life in a Fish Tank

In a previous post, I mentioned that I'm reading Mark Nepo's The Book of Awakening. Today was day 9, a story about some fish. Nepo tells the story of a man who needed to clean his fish tank. In order to do so, he filled the bathtub with water, put the fish in the tub, and commenced to clean the tank. When the man went to retrieve the fish from the tub, he was surprised to see that instead of spreading out and swimming the length of the tub, the fish had huddled together in a spot about the size of the fish tank. While I'm sure that there is some very logical scientific reason for this, that is not the point of the story. The point that I take from this story is that while we all live in a world of infinite possibilities, we often stay in the "fish tank". There are a number of reasons to stay in that tank -- that is where the people you love are, it is safe in the tank, and you have the things you need in the tank.

About 3 years ago when I decided to cram my life into two suitcases and see the world, I had no idea what I was getting into. The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn't want to live in the tank anymore. That said, as I reflect on the decisions that I've made, I'm beginning to wonder if I didn't just trade one tank for another. A year ago I lived on the beautiful island of Isla Mujeres, Mexico. I have friends there that I love more dearly than my own life. As my job there was coming to a close I made the decision to move back to another island that I knew well and where I could get a good job. Before I made this decision, I had dreams of backpacking and living on the fly. Those dreams didn't materialize. Instead I went back to the comfort of the tank. I try not to have regrets, but I do. It's not easy to get away from those ideas that we are told from day one -- you have to have a job, you have to have money, you have to have a roof over your head, you have to have 3 square meals a day, etc... Don't get me wrong, I like having those things, I just wonder if maybe we all swam a little further out we could learn to have those things in a different way. And maybe, we could also have the adventure of our lives. The jury is still out, but I feel those backpack dreams coming back, and I'm starting to feel ready to swim a little further from shore.