What a Dying Goldfish Can Teach Us About Living a Happier Life
Deterioration is subtle
Over time, left unchecked, the water in a goldfish bowl will get murky and start to smell. Then one day, the goldfish is floating on its side desperately trying to breathe. Only a change of water will help. It’s filthy. How could you not have noticed?
That’s the thing, though. It’s such a slow change from clear to dangerously dirty that unless we deliberately and regularly check it, we probably won’t notice there’s a problem until the fish is in trouble.
Now apply the concept of slow, creeping, barely noticeable deterioration to your home. Your job. Your peace of mind. Your relationships.
We don’t perceive incremental changes very much when we’re immersed in them. If you get a damp problem at home and don’t realize, you might not even notice it start to smell. Then over the weeks, it gets a little worse every day, but just a little.
Then you go away for a week and stay in a clean, fresh hotel and when you get back, there’s that awful smell of damp. How could you not have noticed?
I recently had a bed that was getting slowly more uncomfortable. Only when my sleep got so bad I felt unwell did I fix the problem—and what a difference it made when I could sleep again. But why…
