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-- Anonymous, November 05, 1998

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Fast Company Article Summary October 98

Success and Excess by Harriet Rubin, October 1998. Does this theory apply to all of us?

Is society as a whole getting richer monetarily at the expense of our true feelings of success? As I read the stories of three individuals described in this article and thought about other people I know or have heard of, I wondered if we all need to stop and think about this question. The author made several links between people who have made their mark in this country and the rising incidences of depression, alcoholism and self-destruction. People are gaining wealth and fame sooner in life, only to become victims of pain later. The first person described is a 60-year-old man who owns his own production company and is very intelligent. Twenty years ago, however, he was at rock bottom personally. John B. Evans made money very young and spent everything on drugs and alcohol. His mother had told him not to expect to be as successful as his war-hero, lawyer father, and that thought haunted him through-out his life. He lived life in the fast-lane in order to find that success and proved his mother both right and wrong because he was successful monetarily and crumbling personally. After being convinced to start AA meetings, he has since cleaned up his act and changed his motto to Enough. Mary Bell is the next individual story. She was also a successful alcoholic, and finally got help through the 12-step program. She felt she needed to view her family history in a more realistic way before she could accept herself. She now runs a recovery center for families, and strongly believes we tend to shut out our feelings of shame, fear and isolation. These need to be brought to the surface in order to get beyond them. CEOs have a reputation for being success-driven people who are very stressed-out and always worried about achieving more. Bubba Levy was one of those people. Even in his relaxation, playing raquetball, his competitive nature took over and made it an obsession. It took medical problems and three marriages to convince him to look inward and make some changes. Again, he needed to let his emotions and feelings connect with his life. Do you catch yourself bragging about how busy you are or how you never have time to relax? You may think you are complaining, but do you really feel like you have to be busy in order to keep achieving? I think many of us in Extension are guilty of that. I would guess we are not busy because it means well make more money, but maybe we feel the need to achieve, achieve, achieve! Somehow the more hours we put in or the more meetings we attend at night makes us better Extension Educators. And then where do we turn to satisfy our emotions and feelings that need to surface? It would be great if we could actually talk about taking time off without feeling that twinge of guilt! In discussion of the article with a friend, his first thought was that this is what happened to President Clinton! Handling success seemed to be too much for him and his sexual addition became his way of dealing with it all. Somehow being bad makes it easier to accept the glory and fame that came with his prestigious position. A co-worker had similar thoughts to mine about our jobs. But he was very caught up in the fact that if we dont work overtime, well never get the work done, and things just keep piling up. That means extra stress. He thought the theory was fine, but application would be a lot harder!

-- Anonymous, November 05, 1998

Thanks for your comments on this article. Please post future summaries by typing them in paragraph format so they are easier to read. Nice job of relating the article to your work with extension.

-- Anonymous, May 23, 1999