Day is Done
Labor Day is like summer’s light switch: turn if off and the
summer crowds and events are gone. This was a glorious summer in the
Adirondacks but all good things must end: one last look as the sun dips beyond
the treetops and the season, and life, change. All that’s missing is the sound
of a bugle playing Taps.
As a kid my parents sent me to a YMCA camp along the shores
of Lake George: ten kids to a bunk that was an old Army tent. Reveille woke us to a day filled with
activities and sports: we made lifelong friendships and learned how to grow
up. Counselors were college kids we
looked up to: early-on one introduced me to my lifelong love of music and
guitars. And at the end of the day Taps was played as we drifted off from
exhaustion.
One summer they took 20 of us on a 90-mile canoe trip:
paddling, portaging, and setting up camp for 10 days. That was the first time any of us knew we could
anything that hard: hiking, like biking, were natural kid activities, but
shooting rapids and being pushed beyond our endurance levels opened our eyes to
the things people could do when challenged. We told stories about our
experiences around nightly campfires and drifted off to our counselors saying
good job and good night.
My last summer at that camp was a 6-week bus trip with 26
other kids to every national park in America: suddenly 2-dimensional pictures
became 3-dimensional experiences. We pitched tents each night after traveling
to and exploring that day’s park: we learned that America the Beautiful was
more than a song. We were mostly city
kids who’d grown up and mostly stayed around our own neighborhoods: now our
boundaries seemed endless.
Each of those summers ended with heartfelt goodbyes: some
stayed in touch for a year, others for a lifetime. My summers now are again
spent on wilderness lakes and the same feeling comes over me when each
ends. Last night as I was getting ready
to leave the Adirondacks and return to our home in Las Vegas I imagined the
bugle’s notes as the last rays of the sun faded into dark. I think we all need
a place that nurtures today with the memories of yesterday: where we can act
like kids, have great experiences, live the dream, and get ready for whatever
comes next. We never know what our future holds, but we should have faith that
it will be good: remember that every sunset is both the end of one day and the
promise of another.
My message this week is about transitioning from one thing
to the next:
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful
endings.” Lao Tzu
I remember getting the
call that Steve Wynn has sold the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City: we thought
the world had come to an end. Shortly
after that he started developing the Mirage and we rejoined him at the Golden
Nugget in Las Vegas and rejoiced. And then 14 years later he sold Mirage Resorts to MGM: it was like getting hit by lightening twice.
That sale was especially unsettling because he didn’t have another existing
company to join. But he bought the Desert
Inn and started to build what would become a new company called Wynn Las
Vegas. Both of those new beginnings were
disguised as painful endings: we were sorry to see the past go away but quickly
got into building a new team, at a new company. We often have trouble seeing
past the pain that comes from change instead of seeing it as the chance to do
something new. Don’t keep looking in the rear view mirror when the view out the
windshield is filled with the promise of a new tomorrow.
Stay well
