By: Dr. Steve Bettner
Some mornings arrive with noise—others, with meaning.
It was 1978, El Paso, Texas. I was five. The kind of five that still believed the heavens might open up and hand something back if you asked nicely enough. That morning, it handed me a balloon. Red, white, and blue. Bright against the Texas sun. A marvel of helium and wonder tied to my wrist like a promise.
The fairground buzzed, all popcorn and rides and people. My father, stationed at Fort Bliss, was doing what fathers do—working, building, providing. I was doing what five-year-olds do—holding tight to magic, blind to its fragility. That balloon floated beside me like a friend. I didn’t see it as temporary. I saw it as mine.
We left the fair, got in the car, and somewhere between the journey and the driveway, the door opened, and so did the sky.
The balloon escaped. Just like that.
I watched it rise, a slow-motion betrayal. My hands flailed. My heart did what small hearts do when they learn what loss feels like—it shattered. My mother held me. The sky betrayed me.
Even now, nearly fifty years later, I see it as clearly as the moment it happened. That’s how memory works when emotion leaves its fingerprint. A psychiatrist might say it was my first encounter with impermanence. Maybe it was. But what I remember most isn’t the loss—it’s the lesson.
That balloon taught me something I wouldn’t fully understand until I was much older: some things aren’t meant to be held. Not because you don’t deserve them. Not because you didn’t try hard enough. But because ambition—like helium—has its own path.
And here’s the twist: the balloon didn’t just leave me empty-handed. It left me wondering. Dreaming. Reaching.
That’s where the Mexican fisherman comes in. You know the parable—man catches just enough fish to feed his family, relax, play music, enjoy life. Then the ambitious businessman comes along and says, “Scale up. Make a fortune. Retire one day and finally enjoy life.” The fisherman laughs. “Why wait?”
That story haunted me for years. Because I was raised in a culture where the balloon always flies higher. Where ambition is oxygen. Where we’re told to chase, to climb, to hold on tighter next time. And yet, sometimes, it’s the letting go that teaches us the most.
I didn’t choose to lose that balloon. But I did choose to remember it—not as a tragedy, but as a turning point.
Not every dream is meant to land. Some are meant to lift you.
So yes, the balloon floated away. But it carried something with it: the beginning of an understanding. That ambition doesn’t always mean more. Sometimes it means knowing what’s enough. Sometimes it means being five years old, standing in the Texas sun, and learning that the sky can take something from you—and still leave you looking up.
mexicanfisherman.com 