The End of Something

It's sometimes amazing how a small,seemingly insignificant incident can bestow upon the participants an illuminating lesson.

Case in point, nearly a decade ago, when my business partner and friend, Shawn Mery, was living with his family in the Mainline Philadelphia area, I was invited to join them for dinner one when while I was in the area working on a project. When I got to their house, probably around 7:30pm or so, I found Shawn's (then)seven-year-old son crying and blubbering as though he'd just lost his best friend.

"What's the matter?" I asked, as Shawn tried to console him. "He's really upset..."

"Oh, he was watching a Yankees game and it just finished," he said. "He gets that way whenever the Yankees are over. He can never get enough."

It seemed to me like an easily remediable problem. "Why don't you just get him one of those Yankees highlight videos," I suggested. "I'm sure he doesn't care about the game as much as watching the players play...he can watch the Yankees all day long."

"I could do that," Shawn offered, and paused. "But then how we would he ever learn that all things eventually end?"