The Fish and the Ladle

The Fish and  the Ladle

      When faced with a seemingly improbable situation, one hears the elders remind the youth, ‘Even the ladle meets the fish. ‘  The fish swimming in the ocean somehow ends up in the  pot of boiling water in the kitchen, being stirred with a ladle. Under ordinary circumstances, the fish who dwells in the water would not only be so far away from the ladle but geographically, the two would not be found together. The fish is aquatic while the ladle is terrestrial.  Yet the two found each other to be in the same place at the same time.

   When I first heard this proverb, I had difficulty understanding what it meant literally.  Once I understood its literal meaning the implications for its significance in life is quite profound.

      Do you get the literal meaning of the proverb? Once you do, what circumstances in life have you found that fit as examples of this proverb?  One example is my brother, born and raised in the Philippines, marrying a lady from Brazil. Ordinarily, one does not go far from one’s neighborhood or hometown and ends up marrying within the vicinity.

   A very distinct example is President Barack Obama. How could a dark complexioned boy, abandoned by his African father, raised by a single mother in two successive marriages become the first African-American president in a country still struggling to accept Blacks as equal? Ordinarily, a child from a broken home will be at risk from finishing school and growing up with strong character and values.   The country has elected only White presidents until Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States.

    How did I find myself teaching the Montessori Method to teachers in Florida?  Ordinarily, I would have been in Illinois perhaps teaching at a Montessori school or working as a chemist at Abbott Laboratories. My first degree is in chemistry.

      Let’s follow the pathway that led me to Florida.  I went to a Montessori workshop on discipline. This is the first workshop I attended in a long time.  The presentation was interesting but what caught my eye was the presenter’s bio.  He was a coordinator of a public Montessori program offered by a school district.  I was surprised to see that Montessori was now offered in the public schools and that there are positions for Montessorians beyond the classroom and the school. I said to myself,  ‘If there is a position for him, then there is one for me.’

      When I got back to my office, I picked up the Employment Opportunities Book published by the American Montessori Society and casually looked for openings. This is the first time I leafed through this type of book in years.  I found a desired position, applied and was hired. Although it took effort and follow-up to land the job, there still was an element of chance involved in the process. What made me go to the workshop?  What made me pay attention on the speaker’s bio? Would we call this a hunch?  Intuition?  Locating the job opening following the hunch was only the beginning.  Detailed work and sustained effort which followed were required in order to make the job a reality for me.  As I began my new job, what seemed so easy was due to a lifetime of preparation, dedication and love to this type of work.

      You can apply the same method to trace President Obama’s path to the presidency or my brother’s path to marry a Brazilian.  Apply it to your own situation.  What is seemingly impossible becomes probable, then it becomes possible and finally it becomes a reality by taking a chance and putting in the right effort for the right purpose.  I hope I will hear from you.  I love to hear your feedback and testimonies to add to this story.