The Fisherman and the Painted Life
The cost of comparison and the courage to live what’s real
“Nothing is more exhausting than pretending to be something you’re not.”
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Now available as an audiobook! Get your copy today on Audible, iTunes, or Amazon!
The Fisherman and the Painted Life
“They were not half as beautiful as they are painted.”
That’s what Christopher Columbus wrote after seeing manatees he thought were mermaids. He was so locked into what he’d imagined that reality felt like a letdown.
Five hundred years later, we’re still doing the same thing.
Only now, we’re not chasing painted mermaids. We chase curated and painted lives.
There’s an old story of a Wall Street businessman on vacation walking along a quiet beach when he noticed a man sitting in the sand, leaning against his small fishing boat, eyes closed, enjoying the breeze.
Curious, the vacationer stopped. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Resting,” the man replied. “Enjoying the day.”
The vacationer was a bit confused. “Did the boat break? Why aren’t you out fishing?”
“I already caught enough for today,” the man said. “My family will eat well tonight.”
“But why not catch some more?” the businessman asked, seeing opportunity lost. “It’s only noon. You could sell the extra fish. With that money, you could buy a bigger boat. With a bigger boat, you’d catch more fish. Then you could hire people, grow a business, and expand operations. Someday you could sell it all, retire, and live the good life!”
The fisherman listened quietly. “And do what?” he asked.
“Well,” the vacationer said, thinking it through, “then you could relax. You could sit on the beach. You could enjoy your life.”
The fisherman smiled, looked out at the water, and said, “And what do you think I’m doing right now?”
The vacationer was curious and just trying to help. He looked at and saw things differently. He couldn’t see what was actually in front of him, just the picture he’d been programmed to admire.
He’d been sold a familiar story: Hustle. Expand. Scale. Exit. Then, finally, live. That path was so etched in his mind that when he found someone already living, all he could see was someone failing to hustle.
Sound familiar?
We scroll through feeds filled with highlight reels and others’ “wins.” We absorb images of success, beauty, relationships, and careers. All of them carefully framed, expertly lit, and selectively edited. Over time, those images fill our heads with what we’re supposed to want, supposed to chase, supposed to become.
Then we look at our actual lives and feel the same disappointment Columbus found when staring at those manatees.
Not half as beautiful as painted.
We forget that the picture was never the truth. There are real costs to comparisons. Social media isn’t necessarily evil. But it has become the most dangerous comparison machine ever built.
Every scroll suggests a benchmark, each post implies a timeline, and the number of “likes” gives validation and affirmation that we are missing in other aspects of life.
Without realizing it, we stop asking, “What do I actually want?” We start asking, “What am I supposed to want?” We trade our juice … our real energy, our instincts, our story … for a chance to become a B-version of someone else.
The coach who tries to be another coach rather than being himself.
The leader who rolls out an initiative that doesn’t fit her team.
The person shaping a life around validation instead of meaning.
You know what’s worse than being a manatee when someone wanted a mermaid? Being a manatee pretending to be a mermaid.
The fisherman had something the vacationer didn’t: clarity of values and priorities. He knew what mattered. He knew what “enough” looked like and wasn’t waiting for permission to start living.
That’s understanding the difference between your life and a story for someone else to live.
When you spend your energy chasing polished images of success, you drain the juice that could be building something real. When you measure your life against someone else’s highlight reel, you miss the beauty right in front of you. When you become a lesser version of someone else instead of a full version of yourself, everyone loses—starting with you.
You were meant to bring your energy, your gifts, and your story to the life you actually have. Not the one in the frame, in someone else’s feed, or what you think you’re supposed to want. The one that’s yours.
Are you living it, or comparing it to a picture that was never real to begin with?
The fisherman knew the answer. We should, too.
“You were born an original. Don’t die a copy.”
— John Mason
Connecting this quote to the story. The fisherman is fully living his own original life, while the vacationer … and so many of us … are tempted to abandon who we are in order to copy a version of success that was never meant to be ours.
This week’s Chasing Influence tip: The moment you try to be someone else, you forfeit the power of your own.