What parrot fish taught me about life

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Happy Sunday and thank you for opening this week’s #TheLifeofJLOWE newsletter! I’m still writing to you from Utila, Honduras and have been spending my days diving the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef.

By the end of this trip, I’ll be a certified professional PADI Divemaster and I’m really looking forward to exploring off the coast of Jamaica, and finally seeing a part of my home country that I haven’t ever seen before. 

Learn to Scuba Dive, if you can!

Being here has taught me so much about the diving community, about the underwater world and it’s brought me so much peace being able to experience something as magical as diving every day. 

I had always had scuba diving on my bucket list as something that I knew I had to do, and once I did my PADI Open Water Certification in Miami, I knew that this was something that I’d love to do. If you haven’t had the chance but have the means, definitely make the investment into getting certified because there truly is a whole other world off our coasts.

I had no clue how amazing it would be to learn about the underwater world and how fascinating it really is to have the opportunity to experience that part of our blue planet. Don’t forget that most of this planet is ocean!

Getting acquainted with things on the menu

Growing up in Jamaica, one of the staples of our cuisine is seafood, especially a dish called escoveitch (snapper) fish. On the same menu as snapper, though, is oftentimes parrot fish as another fish meat alternative to snapper. 

Admittedly, I’ve eaten parrot fish quite a few times, because growing up, it was just a different option on the menu. As I got older though, groups in Jamaica began to look down on eating parrot fish because of their importance to the coral reefs. Parrot fish meat tastes great, so having someone tell us not to eat it because of the coral reefs almost didn’t feel compelling enough. 

“Well they killed the fish already didn’t they? If I don’t eat it well then someone else will!”

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Seeing their impact first-hand

Scuba diving has allowed me to actually see parrot fish in real life, working on the reefs as they bite away corals and algae and poop out components of sand. 

In fact, despite being quite common around the coral reefs of Utila, parrot fish are one of my favourite animals to observe while scuba diving. They’re a beautiful greenish but with an almost rainbow-esque colour, and they tend to be the most active fish you see along the reefs. 

For me, although I stopped eating parrot fish years ago because of the impact to coral reefs, growing up hearing how we shouldn’t eat parrot fish because they are important to the reefs was only barely enough. I know for many other people in Jamaica and probably around the world, it’s not nearly reason enough for them to avoid eating something that tastes great.

Learning from our own first-hand experiences 

One thing that this personal experience has taught me about the world is that we oftentimes don’t understand the consequences of our actions unless we feel them. We are, to some extent, hardwired and stubborn to chart our own paths and ignore the wisdom of others who may be more experienced, even if it means causing harm to self or even to others in the process.

We might sometimes listen to a trusted friend or family member, but for some reason, there’s something about being human that forces us to want to have our own experiences - to make our own own mistakes. 

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Conclusion

After seeing parrot fish at work, and understanding their true importance to the coral reefs and white sand beaches that we love so much, I’ve come to somewhat regret eating all the parrot fish that I have in my life. 

Is it delicious? Sure. But so is snapper. And you don’t cause the same damage to our reefs by eating snapper. 

So two things for you this Sunday:

1. Stop eating parrot fish. I can tell you first-hand that you’re destroying an eco system by eating them.

   
   Funnily enough, you probably read that as me being a bit abrasive, and probably had a small itch thinking to yourself, “Why should I listen to you? My impact is so small by eating one singular fish”.
   

   And that brings me to number 2. 

2. Not everyone in your life is out to get you, to ruin your fun and to take away your happiness when they tell you not to do certain things.
   
   As I’ve written about before, everyone’s opinions are projections of their own experiences, and oftentimes people have experienced things that you haven’t, and just want to save you from yourself (or save someone/something else from you).

So think deeply about decisions that you make when you go against the grain. Sometimes you can be right in charting your own path and ignoring the advice of others, but you can also be wrong.

Learning from the mistakes of others can help you to avoid making the same mistakes for yourself, and avoid consequences that you really don’t need to feel or cause someone else to feel in the process.

Until next Sunday,
Justin