The Fish Tank Philosophy.
You’ll Never Outgrow a Tank You Don’t Leave
Sharks placed in a fish tank rarely outgrow their environment. They grow proportional to that environment they’ve been placed in. A quick Google search taught me why this is: first, there is a probability that putting a shark in a fish tank means there’ll be poor nutrition and filtration, as these conditions could never truly match what nature meant for the shark. A small place is not suitable for something meant to be big, and unless you’re a goat tied on a rope or a cow undergoing bull fattening or zero grazing, it’s essential to understand the environment you’ve placed yourself in or been placed within. In understanding the tough things, and having those dialogues with yourself, only then can growth be achieved. Growth could be anything you assume it to be.
The comfort zone is a really dangerous place for one to find themselves in. We call it the “comfort zone” precisely because, though we intend to change our circumstances, we fail to recognize that our environment is the root cause. For example, when someone has a guilty pleasure or weakness, say they’re a philanderer or love absinthe while struggling financially, they never view it as a burden on their resources. Instead, they blame everything else, conveniently removing accountability from themselves. Even inaction becomes an excuse: dabbling in self‑pity (no one likes someone who endlessly rehashes their problems) only erodes one’s credibility among peers when decisive action is avoided.
When we levy complaints about our condition (for purposes of this article “condition” and “environment” carry the negative connotations of a situation you’re trying to change), we often spend time complaining and directing those complaints toward things we can’t change. Take, for example, a friend of mine from an institutional structure who hates their present situation within it. They feel defeated by their circumstances, but still tell themselves, “This is my only source of income at present, so I have no other choice but to stick with it.”
It’s gotten to the point that this situation is driving my friend to suicidal depths, and I dwelt on the thought that resignation is one of the biggest causes of lost hope. The thing is, resignation at its foundation is crafted by a failure on one’s part to understand their environment. For example, the larger concern for a lot of young folks within my range is that they won’t be able to live the lives their parents crafted for them or buy the assets their parents did on salaries; but, after coming to grips with this, most of us succumb to the fate that the job market is the same, and because a man shall find dignity in his work, we resign ourselves to simply working for the sake of working. This then entails the rent economy and becomes a virtuous cycle of a life of credit, which means we live from paycheck to paycheck, either waiting for some form of big break or some form of reprieve from our incompetent leaders.
As a young person, I began to see the most effective results in my life when I dabbled in three things: first, understanding the incompetence that surrounds me in terms of inept leadership; second, the deficiencies I have as an individual; and third, the habitual advantages or limitations life has crafted me into. Simply put, the biggest way to change your environment is to break free from it. As excruciating as it is to say, it’s all in your hands, that is the harsh truth. Understanding the difficulty of life and seeing it as such makes life easy because one need not delude themselves any longer. For a youth where the continent’s leadership can look like they intentionally connive to limit your opportunities, the best thing you can do for yourself, save for resignation, is understanding, first and foremost, the difficulty of what you face. That means understanding, as a young person, that there are certain luxuries, however much one’s flesh desires them, that must be set aside.
I usually write from the perspective of a young man because that’s the only perspective I’ve had skin in the game in. It’s the common challenges in brotherhood I understand, but the point I’m trying to raise cuts across regardless of gender. Like Dave said, the perfect metaphor for what should have titled this secular sermonette is that we’re all alone in this together. Understanding this means there’s a better imperative.
Take, for example, you want to be an investment banker. It makes no sense to complain about the lack of opportunities to pivot into this field if you stay in a small town. No amount of prayer or complaints will change your situation. You simply have to move to a larger town so you’ll have a higher incidence of opportunities. Otherwise, senseless holy water and emptying olive oil bottles at 3 a.m., under the guise of supposed witchcraft, won’t get you an investment banking job in a town with three banks, one loan and savings institution that’s family-owned where the receptionist looks like she should be in a retirement home.
Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. That is how you’ll craft an identity. It’s important to see the writing on the wall. A desire to exceed this should be reinforced by reality. We live in an age of information overload. We tend to do less with more than our forebears. It helps to be highly specialized in whatever gives you an advantage over your peers. But the life one needs is only achieved through taking substantive risk.
Even temporarily, one must be able to change their environment if that’s the minimum required to test whether something is for them or not. For the most part, clarity comes from throwing yourself in the deep end. Not foolishly, not begrudgingly, but through a cultivated and well-planned transition. That way, you can see what pressure in a new scenario does for you. Much of self-help literature is shallow in volume. This leads to self-deceit, thinking we have time while focusing on what’s termed hard work, which may not be essential. It becomes posturing without introspection.
I remember when I first got into the habit of reading. My first impulse was to set reading targets. I cared for volume. I was one of those guys who, unprovoked, had to let you know how well-read I was. It mattered to say I read 30 books in five to six months. But everything I needed that information to achieve, I didn’t. I became more knowledgeable, aimlessly cruising in the same spot my 30-book-less self was in the year before that New Year’s resolution.
These supposed lessons started to make sense when I began to accept the harsh tone of introspection. Not just from myself but from those around me. The ones who genuinely care. There’s a friend, family member, or someone in your life who tells the truth about your situation. This person is irritating. No matter how much you lie about what you're trying to pursue or why you haven’t, they always seem to judge you correctly. They trigger the strongest personal rebuttal. The closer the relationship, the worse you react to their criticism. You call them “jibes” to save face publicly, but alone with your thoughts, you know they’re right.
Think of a young man who notices his girl is losing interest. He becomes less heavy-handed. He starts spending more. The idea is that if the girl, who checked out for reasons neither financial nor money-related, gets the princess treatment, then those little moments might bring back the relationship. You wonder why she’s no longer how she was in the first three months. Why she lets others flirt with her. Why she now looks uncomfortable around you in public. What used to be “I love your cute kisses” becomes “people shouldn’t see us doing PDA.” She says that in a club.
By the time it disintegrates into you becoming a spendthrift trying to salvage the girl you knew, it’s already too late. She’s emotionally checked out. Now you’re buying her time because that’s what you’ve conditioned her to. The truth is you knew it was done, but you lied to yourself. The signs were there. You should’ve checked out too. There’s nothing wrong with that. The pain and disappointment may send you into a mini personal spiral, but it’s a sobering experience. It lets you cut your losses and walk away from what was clearly over.
In the same way, life works like this. We engage in escapist workaholism within environments that offer nothing for the path we need to take. Imagine if Usain Bolt did lacrosse training for months before a world championship. No matter how hard he works, if he’s training for the wrong sport, it won’t help. His sport is sprinting. So he trained for it. Sprinting in the wrong direction, however vigorous, only takes you further from your goal. You need to ask yourself what your environment is actually offering you.
The hard conversations you postpone, but know you need, are the most beneficial. To change your personal situation and environment, you must be brave enough to step into new ones.