Lessons From Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”
By: Jovan Cicmil
Tags: Self Improvement, Motivation, Psychology, Books, Business

Lessons From Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”

Understanding the value of struggle

The first time I read “The Old Man and the Sea”, I found it a chore and a nuisance, and it took me a week to slouch through the 100 pages. That’s because I didn’t have a clue about life — I was a 16-year-old kid with an almost exclusive focus on the trivial.

The second time I read the same book, I read it in a single breathless afternoon. Then I spent days thinking about it. I was a 33-year-old man. This time I identified with the book’s protagonist, for two reasons. The first is that I understood the value of struggle by this time. The second is that we will all, one day, be that old man, rowing all alone into the open ocean. This fact easily escapes the teenage mind.

What can we learn from the old man, then?

On luck

Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.

The old man wakes up early for eighty-four days in a row and doesn’t catch a single fish. His reaction? On the eighty-fifth day, he wakes up even earlier and goes out even further on the ocean.

To rely on luck is a fool’s game. To rely on resilience is the opposite. It is good to be lucky, but a man can’t decide to be lucky. He can only decide to keep trying and to keep stacking the odds in his favor.

On respect

I wish I could feed the fish, he thought. He is my brother. But I must kill him and keep strong to do it.

When the old man finally hooks his great fish, he doesn’t treat it with contempt. He shows no signs of relief or gloating. He treats the giant fish as his arch-enemy, his dark shadow beneath the waves. His resolve doesn’t cast negative feelings towards his foe.

There are few ideas so widely spread throughout the world’s traditions, and yet so rarely implemented by man, than loving your enemy. It takes effort to understand that hate, contempt, and ridicule don’t hurt your enemy; they only hinder your actions and blur your focus. Your opponent invariably profits if you are blinded by negative emotions.

On suffering

After he judged that his right hand had been in the water long enough he took it out and looked at it. “It is not bad,” he said. “And pain does not matter to a man.”

The old man doesn’t dismiss his pain in bravado or shallow self-encouragement. He does it matter-of-factly as if re-stating an epiphany he reached a long time ago.

The ability to stoically endure hardship produces increased confidence, belief in one’s abilities, and the respect of one’s peers. Nobody wants to hear you complain, and you shouldn’t stand for your own complaints either. People who know they can endure a lot are more willing to take on a difficult, but rewarding, challenge.

On competition

I must hold his pain where it is, he thought. Mine does not matter. I can control mine. But his pain could drive him mad.

The old man is not stronger, faster, or more stubborn than the fish. His advantage lies in controlling his pain, and his emotional responses.

Many battles are won by outlasting the competitor. You can win a boxing match by being able to take more punishment. You can defeat a competing company by being willing to go longer without turning a profit. Willingness to sacrifice is an excellent predictor of success.

On preparedness

You should have brought many things, he thought. But you did not bring them, old man. Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.

If he did not bring everything he needed, so what? The only purpose of registering what you did wrong is to do it right the next time.

In the present, we can only put in our best effort to succeed with what we’ve got. There is a time for planning, and mid-battle is not that time. Mid-battle is the time for sharpness and intensity and singular focus.