On self-reliance and the expensive consequences of learning too well

Teach Him to Fish

Hand a man a fish and he eats real well today,
teach him to fish and he’ll be at the lake come Saturday.
He’ll eat better, sure, but then he’ll notice other men
with boats, and that’s where all the trouble enters in.

He’ll buy a boat he can’t quite afford on terms that seem just fine,
haul it home on a trailer that’s one tire from the line
of what’s road legal — and spend his Sundays on his back
beneath the hull of something that keeps wanting something back.

The fishing was the easy part, the lesson of the rod —
nobody warned him about boats or motors or the cost
of loving something that requires more than you can give
and still expects you every weekend for as long as you both live.

So give a man a fish if you want one simple day of peace,
teach him to fish if you want his weekends never to cease
being spent on something broken in a driveway in the heat —
independence is expensive and it’s never quite complete.

Hand a man a fish, he eats. Teach him to fish, he buys a boat he can’t afford and spends weekends fixin’ it.

I’m Alan Nafzger. Appreciate ya!