PART 2: THE DECISION WAS MADE, FINALLY!

It was just another visit to the nearby fish market. I usually visited that a couple of times every week. Fish has been a substantial and an important part of my and my family's diet. That day was not any special. It was really cloudy, though, that evening. It was in June-2010. And, I was half way through with the series of my Executive MBA exams. And, my mind and thoughts were overshadowed by the excitement and apprehensions related to those exams (that I had already written and the forthcoming ones). Well, a bit absentminded, I took a quick look at the fish market. I saw the regular fish vendors and routine fish verities. What attracted my attention was the bunch of live tiny fishes in a big flat open water-filled container. That was not, either, a strange and extraordinary sight. There was a river at about just 200 meters from the fish-market. Some of the vendors regularly sold verities of live fishes procured fresh from that river.

During those days, I was quite busy with my life - my studies, work, family. Standing in the midst of the fish market, I started thinking about life, priorities, ambitions, aspirations. Actually, at the fish market, I was away from my books, family and office. So, I was at the right place to relax, think, introspect and reflect, while I was really supposed to just buy some fish for our routine consumption. During my childhood, I had a great passion for Fish Keeping and aquariums (vividly described in PART 1). Over the last many years, life kept me so busy with the mundane stuff. I could not really get started again with Fish Keeping and aquariums. However, the desire and passion were always alive within me. Any time, any where I saw an aquarium, I used to take a pause and stare at that for a while. I always felt a strong urge to bring home an aquarium and get started with that interesting hobby again. However, in tangible and realistic terms, I did not stay (and have not been staying) in "my" home over the past many years! I am a Lean Living Practitioner and I have been staying in rented accommodations. Also, I usually go on a long vacation every year. At least, I did that over the last 10 years. And, my job made me move from one place to another. So, every time, my thought of bringing home an aquarium got dampened by the following questions. What happens if I have to move to a different city | state | country? What happens if I have to move to another house in short order? Who feeds my fish when I go on vacation? How does the required regular water-change happens when I am away? Those questions were strong enough to find me weak at forming a decision to get started with an aquarium again. Life went on and no aquarium came home!

Standing in the midst of the fish market and subconsciously focusing on a bunch of live tiny fishes in a big flat open water-filled container, I kept thinking. I thought, "there are possibly more uncertainties than certainties in life! And, life is shorter than it appears. There are more things I want to do than I have capacity to do. Is it really wise to keep postponing something (Fish Keeping) that I love so much? Is it wise to be logical and judgmental than doing outright what I want to do when I have the very capacity to do it, right here and right now? Should I keep thinking about doing it or I should just do it?" Then, I thought, "I did not really know what awaits me tomorrow, let's do it today". Without thinking further, I just moved ahead over to the fish-vendor who had a bunch of live tiny fishes in a big flat open water-filled container. After taking a quick look at me, he said "these are alive, so the freshest and those taste really good". Then I expressed my intention to buy a few of those to start Fish Keeping. However, there was a concern. I did not have a container to transport the fish to my home. Nor, did I have a container to keep the fish in at home. In a hurry, I asked the fish-vendor whether and where I could purchase a big glass jar for the fish. He was kind enough to point me to the nearest market and he also indicated the probable shops where I could get a jar. So, I finally formed my decision to really start Fish Keeping, again! And, that was the turning point. This was what happened NEXT!

PART 2: THE DECISION WAS MADE, FINALLY! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.