I like this story a lot. But which of these men has more true freedom?
Sure we may all want to "sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos". But life isn't always this kind.
Eventually most people will get sick, or have a sick kid or family member. Or be victims of crime. Or need to make repairs or suffer a natural disaster. Or be involved in a dispute with neighbors or the local government.
Money isn't important for the easy times in your life - it's important for the difficult times.
> Eventually most people will get sick, or have a sick kid or family member.
Thanks to cheap state health insurance I don't have to pay most of such expenses out of my pocket.
> Or be victims of crime.
This is actually much worse when you are rich. At least in my country. Rich seal themselves in closed enclaves out of fear for their property.
> Or need to make repairs
If you own thing that you can't afford to repair or replace and can't manage without, you are doing it wrong.
> suffer a natural disaster
I'm not sure about this one. It's easier to get away from some natural disasters when you can buy your place on any mode of transportation but you have to leave so much more behind you. It could make you more hesitant to leave.
> Or be involved in a dispute with neighbors or the local government.
It might be easier to buy your way out but having money makes you a target for your neighbours and for the government.
But we went from "money == freedom" to "future will bite you so better stack up a pile"
It sounds like you're trying to convince yourself that you don't want money, rather than the opposite.
Is the only thing you want to do with your life to sit by the seaside, squeeze out a couple of kids, and die peaceful and unknown? If so, fine, no need for money. If you have any speck of ambition in you, though, chances are you want to make some sort of positive difference to the world out there.
Money is a tool that you can use to do that.
What the fisherman parable fails to convey is that through his enterprise, the guy who did buy a bigger boat, expand, etc, ended up feeding millions of people. If no one did that, we'd all still be living in small fishing villages and dying of colds and flus. You owe all your modern conveniences to people who got off their asses and built empires (for whatever motivations it is they had).
I have nothing against millionaires. Especially those that improve environment around them as a side effect of their efforts to get rich and stay rich.
The way I feel is much closer to the fisherman but I don't have his confidence to make an argument that his lifestyle is good.
