Enough.: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life

Chapter 10. Too Much "Success," Not Enough Character

The Reverend Fred Craddock, a remarkable preacher from Georgia, may have been imagining things—the way preachers are wont to do—but he says this story really happened. Dr. Craddock was visiting in the home of his niece. There was this old greyhound, just like the ones who race around a track chasing those mechanical rabbits. His niece had taken the dog in to prevent it from being destroyed because its racing days were over, and Dr. Craddock struck up a conversation with the greyhound:

I said to the dog, "Are you still racing?"

"No," he replied.

"Well, what was the matter? Did you get too old to race?"

"No, I still had some race in me."

"Well, what then? Did you not win?"

"I won over a million dollars for my owner."

"Well, what was it? Bad treatment?"

"Oh, no," the dog said. "They treated us royally when we were racing."

"Did you get crippled?"

"No."

"Then why?" I pressed. "Why?"

The dog answered, "I quit."

"You quit?"

"Yes," he said. "I quit."

"Why did you quit?"

"I just quit because after all that running and running and running, I found out that the rabbit I was chasing wasn't even real."

A true story? Well, perhaps not. But I expect that most of us know just how that old greyhound felt. How many times have we gone around and around the track, chasing the false rabbit of success, only to discover that the real rabbit was under our nose, waiting to be discovered all along?

Flawed Measures of Wealth . . .

To be clear, I'm not against success. But ...