Ernest Hemingway’s novella, “The Old Man and the Sea,” is considered a timeless classic, written back in 1951. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1953 and is widely loved for its universal themes that people of all ages and backgrounds can relate to. Here is how this short but profound story will change your perspective on life.

Santiago, an old fisherman from a fishing village off the coast of Havana, has gone without a catch for 84 days. And as this is his main source of income, he has barely any food to eat or clothes to wear. He lives in a rundown shack with no one to look after him. Only his ex-employee, a kind boy called Manolin, cares for him and does his best to find food and keep the old man alive.

He knows the old man wouldn't go out of his way to take loans and trouble other people, so he does it himself. He's the only one who believes in the old man’s ability, but his parents had forced him to join another boat as they needed money, and the old man couldn't offer any due to his unlucky run.

The very status quo of this story teaches you how grateful you should be, just to have anyone to help and care for you.

The boy was doing well in his new boat, where they caught a lot of fish. The villagers were faring well too. No one was nearly as unlucky as the old man.

What the old man was facing was purely bad luck. He’s the most experienced fisherman in the village, and he was simply not getting any bites. It wasn't like he hooked on fish and let them go.

Did the old man let that bother him?

No. Every morning, he woke up as early as the other fishermen and set out with the same energy he had when he was a lucky man.

And on day 85, where the story begins, the old man does just the same. He wakes up early, even before the other fishermen, and sets off.

He even convinces himself that today would be the day, that 85 was a lucky number, etc. Something you would not expect from someone who’s failed unjustly so many times.

As his gut feeling told him that day, the old man indeed hooks onto a big fish. And it wasn’t just any big fish.

But soon after, he realizes something grave. He does not have the strength to fight anymore. His old age and all those days with a lack of food and rest were getting to him.

He can’t drag the fish in like he normally would.

Nevertheless, he makes the tough decision to keep fighting. If he couldn’t out-power the fish, he would out-wait it.

He would show it, and everyone, that he could fight till his last breath to get what he wanted.

And that is exactly what he does.

The fish drags him deep into the sea, far away from land, but he keeps going, playing the waiting game. The night brings a biting cold; the lack of food and water makes him faintish, but he holds on, patiently waiting for his chance to strike.

And after two long days of pain and struggle, he gets his chance. He emerges the better out of both fish and man, as the fish comes up to take a breath.

Despite your hard work, sometimes you don’t get what you want. The old man only realizes after catching the fish that his boat is too small to hold it.

In the end, he decides to latch it onto the boat, but soon after, he realizes an even more grave reality. Blood from the fish was going to attract sharks.

But like before, he doesn’t give up and squirm and cry. He gears up all the tools in his boat to fight the sharks to the death.

And he does. He loses his harpoon, breaks his knife, oar, and even a weapon he makes by taking wood from the boat, fighting and killing over a dozen sharks.

But in the end, nightfall stabs him in the back. With no light to see and no weapon to defend his catch, the sharks wreak havoc and leave nothing but the skeleton of the marlin.

The old man wishes it was all a dream, and that he never hooked that fish, but those negative thoughts too go away in an instant.

What had happened had happened, and there was no changing it. He simply rows back home and goes to sleep.

He may have lost his hard-earned fish, but the next day he regains something he really needed for the long run.

Something the biggest fish couldn’t have achieved.

Moved to tears after seeing the skeleton on the side of the boat, the boy comes to the old man and declares that he was going to join him again—regardless of what his parents thought.

And just like that, the old man regains confidence and hope, and gears up for the next day, despite all the harm the ocean had done to him. He and the boy were going to take on the ocean together, just like the old days.

The last moments of the story teach a very important lesson: not everyone will see it as you do.

Something close to your heart might be something another person hates.

As they say, “One man’s treasure is another man’s trash.”

A few tourists are shown looking at the large marlin skeleton near a dumpster. One of them asks another what fish it was, and he guesses that it’s a shark.

They shrug and move on.

They saw how special it was due to its size, but they didn’t know the powerful story behind it. They didn’t see it the way the old man, the boy, or even we—the reader—would.

“The Old Man and the Sea,” by Ernest Hemingway, is a classic, timeless example of man’s struggle, sacrifice, and perseverance in the fight to survive.

Despite being only a novella, it does more than enough to help change lives through the life of a fictional old man struggling to catch a fish.

It is a story people of all ages should read and adopt the lessons and themes into their lives.