Page 23 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

2 CHAPTER 1

when he encounters a fisherman. A nice if modest number of trout he’s caught rest in
a peach basket beside him.
“You ought to hire yourself some people to help you fish,” said the businessman.
“What would that bring me?” came the laconic reply from the fisherman.
“Well, you could sell the fish and make a nice profit,” was the answer.
“What would I do with that?”
“Well, you could hire a few more people to help with the fishing.”
“And with that?”
“Well, you’d make a good bit of money over time.”
“What would I do with that?”
“Well,” said the businessman, warming to the task of creating a business plan for
this obvious rube, “you could buy yourself a fishing boat.”
“And what would I do with that?”
“You could catch a whole lot more fish and make a lot more money.”
“And what would I do with that?”
“Well, you could sit back and let others do the fishing for you.”
“And what would I do then?”
“Well, then you would have time for leisurely pursuits instead of just working all
the time.”
“What would I do with all that leisure time?”
“Well, you could sit back and relax and maybe just enjoy the day and do a little fish-
ing,” said the businessman, feeling a bit exasperated by the man’s obtuseness.
“But I’m doing that now,” the fisherman replied.
I swear the way my father tells this story, it seems to go on indefinitely. You can feel
the punch line coming ten minutes before his drawling delivery gets you there. He never
seems to tire of telling it, perhaps even relishing the fact that most of us have heard the
story a thousand times and are champing at the bit at his slow windup and delivery.
But I have to admit the story is a good one. For one thing, there’s the strong syn-
ergy between the story and the storyteller, my father. As someone who grew up dur-
ing the tail end of the Depression, finished college, did a stint in the Navy, and then
returned home to run the family grocery business without a pause for forty years, he
probably feels personally connected to this story. What are you waiting for to do what
matters most, the story seems to be saying to him as much as my father’s audience, a
self-reflective question echoed in his own drawling raconteurship. And certainly, the
story broaches the idea about doing those things that are most important to you now,
rather than deferring them to the future.
The story is also germane to the workplace more generally, begging the question not
only about the meaning of our toil but of the overall purpose of business. Do we, as
workers or owners, envision long careers creating wealth after which we can then
invest ourselves in finding meaning? Or do we look for ways to integrate value creation
and the practice of values into the present moment? Are the two inseparable? How
might they coalesce? What is the raison d’etre of business? My father’s story, as it turns