The Japanese fresh fish story.

 “Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment.” — L. Ron Hubbard.

My favorite

Japanese people love fresh fish. However, the waters close to shore do not have as many fish. So the fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever.

The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring in the fish and the fish were not fresh. The Japanese did not like the taste.

To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer.

However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen and they did not like frozen fish either.

So fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks to keep them alive.

Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. What did they finally do.

The Japanese fishing companies still bring their fish in big tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but keeps rest of the fish kicking.
They arrive in a very lively state.
…
As soon as you reach your ceiling  or whatever, you might lose your passion. You don’t need to work hard any more, so you relax. So you start spending time in badminton court or in the city club.

This is the exact problem with the lottery winners who squander their money, wealthy heirs who never grow up and bored homemakers who get addicted to prescription drugs.

“Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment.” — L. Ron Hubbard

The more intelligent, persistent and competent you are, the more you enjoy a good problem.

If your challenges are the correct size, and if you are steadily conquering those challenges, you are happy.

You will have fun.
You will be alive and kicking
… …

Don’t create an artificial ceiling and rest under it. Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go!