As always, there is a story.

An American businessman was
at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one
fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The
American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long
it took to catch them. The Mexican replied “ Only a little while.”  The
American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish. The Mexican
said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then
asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said,
“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife
Maria, and then stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play
guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life, Senor.”

The American scoffed, “I am
a Harvard MBA and I could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with
the proceeds from the additional fish, buy a bigger boat. You could catch far
more fish with the bigger boat, and with the proceeds you could buy several
boats, eventually you would have your own fleet of fishing boats. Instead of
selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, and
eventually open your own cannery. You would control the product, the processing
and the distribution. Of course you would need to leave this small coastal
fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York City, where you will run your
expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked,
“But Senor, how long will this all take?” The American replied,“ 15-20 years.”

“But what then, Senor?” the
Mexican asked. The American laughed and said,  “That’s the best part”!
When the time is right you would announce a public offering and sell your
company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions”.

“Millions, senor? Then what?”
the amazed fisherman asked. The American said, “Then you would retire. You
could move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish
a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, and stroll to the
village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your
amigos.”

The word satisfaction
is the noun form of the verb satisfy, from a Latin root meaning, “to
make enough”. That phrase could be looked at in several different ways. “To
make enough”, as in to produce, build, or grow enough of something to fulfill
our needs or desires. Or as in “I make enough”, a somewhat defensive response,
which means that I make enough money to get by on or more than enough to
get by on, but I don’t want you to know just how much I make; either it’s none
of your business or I don’t want you judging me. A third interpretation of “to
make enough” can be to declare or recognize that what I already have is enough;
to make what I have be enough; to be satisfied with what I have. It’s
enough already!

But what about this word enough?
How much is enough? Enough to barely survive? Enough to get all my basic
needs met? How about a few comforts? Why not all my desires? Certainly needs
are far fewer than desires, and how many of my needs should go wanting so that
you can have more of your desires met? Here the issue of social equity and
justice comes into sharp focus. Wants are many, and needs are few. Live simply
so that others may simply live. Buddhists teach that desire is the source of
all suffering and misery. Jesus counseled us not to store up goods in this
world. Perhaps the 18^th century rabbi Israel Salanter summed it up
best. He said, “We spend our time worrying about our physical well being and
the state of our neighbor’s soul. Better we should spend our time worrying
about our neighbor’s physical well being and the state of our own
soul.”  Many religious traditions decry an excess of desire for worldly
things. What happens to us when we try to meet nonmaterial desires through material
means? What happens to our society, to our souls? Many, if not most of us in
contemporary Western society are searching for an external “food” that will
satisfy the emptiness within, devouring everything in sight, and tasting little
of it.

In Franz Kafka’s short
story, The Hunger Artist, we are introduced to a man who fasts as an art form.
Fasting becomes quite chic, and he is admired by many far and wide for his
ability to go without eating for long periods of time. He goes on fasting for
many days, weeks, months, and years, long after the fashion passes. He is a man
possessed by some inner demon that drives him to fast, even as the fasting
consumes his body and ultimately his life. Finally, as he lays taking his last
breath, having given his all for his “art”, he is asked how he was able to fast
so often and for so long. With his dying breath, he gasps out, “I never found
any food that I liked.” In a bizarre twist on Kafka’s hunger artist, who had no
appetite for anything, we eat everything in sight, but never find a food that
satisfies us. And so we starve in the midst of plenty.

An hour’s stroll through any
major department store, discount mart, or shopping mall in this country will
quickly illustrate that as a society we have a gross surfeit of what we need
and desire. In fact we have a gross surfeit of things that we will never need,
and probably shouldn’t ever desire! But despite all we have and enjoy, it is in
some profound, deeply painful way, never enough. We drool after this year’s new
model car, this season’s fashion statement, the latest electronic wizardry, a
little more in the bank, a slightly bigger house. Why didn’t last year’s car,
clothing, gadget, or house satisfy us? What is it we are really hungering for?

As the prophet teaches,
there is a hunger in the land, not for bread, not for water, but for the word
of God. Spiritual and emotional hunger can never be filled by more stuff. It’s
not necessarily filled by less stuff either, mind you, as many ex-’60’s hippies
and former religious ascetics can attest. It is simply a different kind of
hunger that requires a different kind of food to fill it and nourish us. At the
same time we fill our malls and maws to overflowing with goods that most of our
ancestors never heard of and got along just fine without. We decry the lack of
community in our communities; the crime, alienation, and disregard for each
other that is increasing in all sectors of our society. If “stuff” brought
happiness and fulfillment, we should be the most blissful, satisfied society on
earth, with no bigger problem that what to wear tomorrow. But a profound
dissatisfaction pervades our culture, and manifests itself in deep discontent,
mistrust, even hatred of our institutions, each other, and ourselves.

This deep dissatisfaction
with much of our lives and unfulfilled spiritual hunger drive much of the
consumption worldwide that threatens our continued tenure on this planet past
the next century. The so-called “developed” world represents 20% of the world’s
people, and yet consumes 80% of the world’s resources! How developed is
that?  If we were half as technologically brilliant as we profess to be,
we could be using 20% of the available resources to sustain 80% of the people
at a high standard of living. Now those would be “developed nations”!

Not all societies are in the
addictive consumption pattern that we are. In Australia for example, aboriginals
spend 85% of their time on spiritual and ritual matters- in other words, making
meaning within their world, rather than making stuff out of it.
This is a food that truly feeds the soul.

In over twelve years of
doing men’s workshops and seminars, helping thousands of men to develop their
life’s missions, not one mission statement has ever mentioned making money.
They have all been about feeding children, creating a safe world for others,
healing the planet, and so on.

A critical element needed if
we are to move to a truly sustainable economy is the cessation of the effort to
meet nonmaterial (i.e. spiritual, emotional, psychological, etc.) needs via
material means and methods. It will require valuing the “soft stuff” of human
dignity, self worth, relationship, sense of community, and love. It will
require personal healing of a magnitude larger than we have ever imagined, and
totally within reach. It will require a commitment to making sure that the
basic needs of all people and beings on our planet are met, and continue to be
met. It means thinking of the entire world as our country, city,
neighborhood, and backyard. If I wouldn’t let it happen in my own house, I
should do what I can to make sure that it doesn’t happen on my planet, on my
watch.

Those of us who enjoy
abundance have a special duty to make a difference in the lives of those who
have real needs going unmet. Once we have learned to fulfill our own, physical,
spiritual, emotional hungers, the natural next step is to turn outward, and
give from our overflowing cup.

We don’t have to save the
whole world in one fell swoop. An old Jewish proverb says that whoever saves a
single soul; it is as if she saved the entire world. Reaching out to our
neighbor who lost their job, sending a check to a hunger relief agency, writing
a letter to the local paper or the national magazine, encouraging our children,
parents, friends and families to do what they can, where they can, is all a
part of the solution. Gandhi said, “Whatever we do will be insignificant, but
it is vitally important that we do it.” The world is bleeding to death from a
thousand local cuts. The best remedy is a thousand local points of healing,
beginning with each of us. It’s a way to “make enough”, to achieve a true and
lasting satisfaction.

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