Fast Company article for July 1999 "Enough is Enough" By Chuck Salter July-August 1999 Issue, page 121 Prepared by Vince Crary

"Enough is Enough" is an article I enjoyed reading. The article tells about a number of different people and how their lives have gotten out of control. By out of control, I mean their obsession with getting more has caused them to realize what they have is not necessarily what they desire.

Canyon Ranch Health Resort is a place people come to help refocus their lives. "When so many life goals seem attainable, what kind of life is desirable?" Canyon Ranch was started by Mel Zuckerman who by 1977 had built one of Tucson's top residential real-estate developments from scratch. Mel was a success, but he also had high blood pressure, was 50 pounds overweight, and his doctor told him he had the body of a 70 year old. Mel was not yet 50 at the time.

Zuckerman's Canyon Ranch helps others like him turn their lives around. According to his doctor, Mel at age 71 has the body of a man 30 years younger. When is enough enough? What is important in life? How do we want to be remembered? Dan Baker, the center's clinical director and spiritual helmsman gets visitors to Canyon Ranch to answer these questions by thinking about their lives as if they were on their death beds.

An article like "Enough is Enough" should be read often. We all need to think about what matters most in our lives. We all get wrapped up in work and can lose focus. We all seem to think more is where it's at. I like Dan Bakers words, "It's hard to take time in the middle of a busy life just to think about what we have done and what we want to achieve," he says. "We have to find new ways to impose time-outs."

Again, I think this is an article we need to reread from time to time. I intend to make copies and send to our children and others.

-- Anonymous, August 05, 1999

Answers

Vince Crary,

This is an excellent article as you mentioned. I found it also to be very useful. All of us can be accused of "chasing the carrot" with potential disaster awaiting use. We all need to visit "Waldon's Pond" from time to time. "Simplify, Simplify." If you have not read any of Steven Covey's works, you might. Well done!

-- Anonymous, October 01, 1999