There was a group called “The Fisherman‘s Fellowship”. They were surrounded by streams and lakes full of hungry fish. They met regularly to discuss the call to fish, and the thrill of catching fish. They got excited about fishing!!
Someone suggested that they needed a philosophy of fishing, so they carefully defined and redefined fishing, and the purpose of fishing. They developed fishing strategies and tactics. Then they realized that they had been going at it backwards. They had approached fishing from the point of view of the fisherman, and not from the point of view of the fish. How do fish view the world? How does the fisherman appear to the fish? What do fish eat, and when? These are all good things to know. So they began research studies, and attended conferences on fishing. Some traveled to far away places to study different kinds of fish, with different habits. Some got PhD‘s in fishology. But no one had yet gone fishing.
So a committee was formed to send out fishermen. As prospective fishing places outnumbered fishermen, the committee needed to determine priorities.
A priority list of fishing places was posted on bulletin boards in all of the fellowship halls. But still, no one was fishing. A survey was launched, to find out why… Most did not answer the survey, but from those that did, it was discovered that some felt called to study fish, a few to furnish fishing equipment, and several to go around encouraging the fisherman.
What with meetings, conferences, and seminars, they just simply didn‘t have time to fish.
Now, Jake was a newcomer to the Fisherman‘s Fellowship. After one stirring meeting of the Fellowship, Jake went fishing. He tried a few things, got the hang of it, and caught a choice fish. At the next meeting, he told his story, and he was honored for his catch, and then scheduled to speak at all the Fellowship chapters and tell how he did it. Now, because of all the speaking invitations and his election to the board of directors of the Fisherman‘s Fellowship, Jake no longer has time to go fishing.
But soon he began to feel restless and empty. He longed to feel the tug on the line once again. So he cut the speaking, he resigned from the board, and he said to a friend, “Let‘s go fishing.” They did, just the two of them, and they caught fish.
The members of the Fisherman‘s Fellowship were many, the fish were plentiful, but the fishers were few.
翻译：
在一个河湖密布鱼虾成群的地方成立了一个“钓鱼者协会”，协会的每个成员都是钓鱼的热衷者，他们时常聚在一起畅谈钓鱼的心得和钓鱼所带来的种种欢乐。
其中还有人提出应该对钓鱼形成一套理论，因此，他们谨慎地对钓鱼和钓鱼的目的进行了反复的定义，甚至还得出了关于钓鱼的战略和战术。但很快他们又意识到这样去研究钓鱼其实是一个倒退，因为他们仍然是从渔夫的角度而不是从鱼本身的角度来探讨钓鱼这一行为的。世界在鱼的眼里究竟是怎么样的？渔夫的出现对鱼又意味着什么？鱼吃什么，何时进食？这些才是需要弄懂的问题，于是他们又开始了新的调查研究，参加各种各样的关于钓鱼的讨论会，有些人还不辞千里到各地研究不同种类、不同习性的鱼，甚至有些还成为了研究鱼类的理论博士，但是他们当中没有一个真正去钓过鱼。
考虑到可供钓鱼的地方多而钓鱼者少，协会为此还专门成立了一个委员会来评估各种钓鱼场所，并给这些场所先后排名。
于是，协会各个大厅的公告栏上都贴了一份名册表注明哪些地方可以优先钓鱼，但结果还是没有谁去钓。为什么会出现这样的现象呢？协会又发起了问卷调查，大部分人没有反应，但从那些填写了问卷的人可以得知，有些人是在忙着研究鱼类，有些是在忙着完善钓鱼的装备，还有一些正在忙着到处发动人们去钓鱼。
太多的聚会，太多的研讨会要开，使得他们根本就没有时间去钓鱼。
杰克是协会里的一名新人，在开完一次激动人心的会议后，他就跑去钓鱼了。在试过好多方法之后，他掌握了其中的窍门，钓上了一条上等大鱼。在接下来的一次会议上，杰克的钓鱼经验引起了大家的兴趣，跟着在协会的所有会议上，都要邀请杰克谈一番他是如何钓上那条鱼的。如今，因为要忙着去应付演讲，已成为协会董事的杰克再抽不出时间可以去钓鱼了。
很快的杰克开始觉得不安和空虚了，他渴望能再次体会到鱼上钩收线时的那种感觉，所以他决定不再演讲了并辞去了董事一职，他对一个朋友说：“我们钓鱼去吧！”于是他们两个人就去钓鱼去了，而且还钓到了鱼。
钓鱼者协会的会员很多，水里的鱼也很多，但真正的钓鱼者却没有几个。
