The Golden Fish - Story on Desire

The Three Wishes -  What to desire and what to not?

Mythical stories from the east that facinated me in my running days.

There was once fisherman who was fishing as usual in a river. On that particular day, he was not able to catch any fish. He was getting disappointed on that day. After waiting so long, all of a sudden, there were movements from his fishing line. He realised that finally he had caught a fish. He brought the fish towards him to have a closer look and realised that the fish was no ordinay one. It was how a goldfish would look like. The colour was bright golden and the fish's skin was very shiny. He was amazed with the fish. Seeing its splendour, the first thought that came into the mind of the fisherman was to release the fish by throwing back in the very river.

The moment he threw, the golden fish came close to the fisherman and told that he has saved its life and for that it granted three wishes and disappeared into the river. It all happened too fast that the fisherman was shocked to know that the fish was able to talk.

He was not able to tell this to anyone about as people would not believe and think that he is mad. Eventually, he told himself to try out the granted wishes and see if it works.

He was thinking of the first wish for long. Nothing was coming in his mind. He was thinking whether the golden fish told was just a joke. Nevertheless, he told himself that he certainly would like to try to ask for a wish. Finally, he did. He was in a toilet cubicle when he wished. He told himself to say for fun if the wish worked and wished for a long nose. Out came a very long nose from his own normal nose. When he saw what happened, he did not want to come out of the toilet for fear that people may redicule him.

He realised that whatever that is happening in front of him is all true. He decided to quickly amend the wish as soon as possible. Without reflecting, he wished, " Let me not have this nose." Immediately, the nose vanished totally and the fisherman was not having any nose. He realised that things were happening fast, crazy and getting worse. He told himself,"How am I to go out in the world like this?".

Finally coming to his senses, he became sincere and told himself that he was not interested in anything except his own nose. There came his own nose and he straightaway felt on top of the world. From that day onwards he became happy in life throughout.

Morale of the story
Actually in life we are happy. Happiness is our state of being. The feeling something is lacking will make us wish for things. Sometimes we wish for things that we do not want. We should be happy with our own self. When we compare with people who are rich and wealthy, we tend to feel that we are lacking something. When we compare with people who are poor, we tend to feel that we are fortunate in life. We become happier by comparing with those who do not have rathar than those who have.