After my wife and I were married we took up aquariums and fish as a hobby. We started out with a 20 gallon tank, and soon added another 20 gallon tank. We enjoyed filling the tanks and decorating them with different sands and rocks. The main focus was of course the fish. Bold colors, different temperaments – we liked them all.
In the area we lived there were two fish stores that we frequented. Both had a variety of fish, and on any given day we could walk into one and find something different than in the other stores in the area. On one particular day we took our son and headed to the fish store to see what new we could find. We always liked to go to this particular store because they had a large, dimly lit room with wall to wall lighted tanks. The lighting allowed the fish tanks to be vibrant with color, and gave you that “aquarium room” feel you might get at some large museum.
As we looked tank to tank we were seeing all kinds of neat looking fish that might be our next acquisition. Then my son and I looked into a tank and saw what we thought was the most awesome aquarium addition possible! Skittering along the bottom of the tank was a blue lobster! Granted, it was only about 3 inches long and qualified more as a crayfish – but it was blue and was cool! This one blue creature was going to take all of our fish budget, but we HAD to have it.
We purchased our totally awesome blue lobster and took him home, where we placed him in our main tank. We would walk by the tank and look at him. He was so cool! Our friends would come over and see our blue lobster and tell us how cool he was. We worked hard to keep his tank spotless. We scrubbed it often, kept the filter clean, and had a Plecostomus in the tank to clean the bottom.
Our home group would come and meet at our home, and everyone would check on our blue lobster to see how he was growing. He had become a celebrity. Once and awhile someone would joke with our son and ask if we were going to eat our blue lobster when it had grown. He would tell them that his blue lobster was a pet, and not for someone’s dinner.
One day we came home and our son went to look in the pristinely clean tank to see our blue lobster. He came back to me with tears in his eyes and told me that something was wrong with the lobster. He didn’t look right. I headed back over to the tank with him, and sure enough, instead of seeing our beautiful blue lobster staring back at us, I quickly understood we were looking at a crime scene. Littered across the bottom of the tank were the individual blue scales of our beautiful blue lobster. They were no longer held together by his body. It was mysteriously missing.
As my wife and I tried to figure out what had happened to our prize lobster, she looked into the tank and saw a big eye look back at her from the side of the tank. It was then that we knew what had happened to the lobster. It hadn’t been Col. Mustard in the conservatory with the candlestick. It had been our Plecostomus in the tank with his sucker mouth. That same mouth that had dutifully kept the bottom and sides of the tank clean had apparently grown to where he needed a larger food source, and had found it in the form of our blue lobster. That blue lobster that my son said was a pet, not a meal, had become the main course for that spiny sucker fish. Our 97 cent scavenger had eaten our $20 prize.
Life can be like that if we don’t pay attention. We can work hard to build a life that gives us fulfillment, but if we don’t pay attention to the various parts of our lives we can find things getting out of balance. If this is allowed to continue for a long period of time, one of the parts of our life can grow to the point where it begins to infringe on the rest of our life. Left unchecked, it can devour that which we prize. Kinda like that Plecostomus. He had a definite place in that fish tank, and he served his purpose well. Yet in our diligence to keep the tank pristine, we lost sight of what his purpose in that tank had been. When he had gotten large we should have moved him to a different tank or found him a new home. Instead, we were preoccupied with other things and left him where he was. Where he made a meal of our blue lobster. So much for “fish are friends, not food…”
In my own life I’ve had times when something that had started out as a good activity over time was no longer as vital as it once had been. Unfortunately I never took time to survey what the current needs of my family and life were and where that item fit in, and it caused things to get out of balance. My wife had to sit me down and help me see where things were off, and I made the adjustment. I’m so thankful that she did, because I didn’t see it. It was like keeping that tank clean. I was doing the right things, but not taking into account all that was related. She helped me see that I needed to “move the fish” before it ate away at my prize – my family.
When is the last time you took a step back to look at your life to see what the situation is? Is there something that is sucking away time from your family? Is there something slowly eating away at your relationships? Many relationship issues can be repaired or prevented by taking the time to be honest in assessing our part and then taking the step of making needed changes. You made need to “move the fish” in your life as well.
Protect your prize. I wish that the last memories I have of that blue lobster weren’t of collecting a few blue scales and putting them in the trash. At least he can live on as an object lesson for us all.
P.S. I’m guessing you want to know what happened to the Plecostomus. My son and I were all for flushing him down the toilet for his capital offense. My wife gave him a reprieve, and he was shipped off to a correctional tank in another home where he served out his debt to society. #Movethefish
