On Monday I got my biweekly email reminder from my editor about my column deadline.
The deadline has been every other Thursday for about five months now. But for the last three months, for whatever reason, I have pushed that deadline and missed it over and over again.
Most weeks Dawn Watson, the features editor for The Press, performed her magic on my horrible grammar and got my article to print. A couple weeks ago, I was just too late and “The Road to Healthy” had to wait until the following week.
Well, this week’s reminder was a bit more descriptive and stern. My deadline was ultra-important to make as the next column would run in the big Labor Day issue—the last hurrah of the summer—and I needed to get it in on time.
Well, I started writing this at 11:56 p.m. on Thursday so I guess officially I made it in time. Now as long as I can keep my eyes open and my fingers moving for another half an hour, all should be good.
Labor Day in the Hamptons is a
big
holiday. It represents so many different things to so many different people.
Those of us in the service industry view it as the beginning of our downtime. Teachers see it as the last weekend before they go back to work. For the 1 percent, perhaps it’s the last full week in their second home or the end of their six-figure August rental.
I personally entered this spring and summer season with goals. Goals about my health, goals about my physical and mental well-being and business goals. When the dust settles, I will have to give myself some grades; early appearances say I am looking at a lot of incompletes.
As fast as the summer winds come blowing in they seem to blow right by. For whatever reason, if it feels like winter drags, then summer flies.
A few days ago when I started to think about perhaps not achieving my goals or completely meeting my goals, my initial reaction was to get down on myself. Why couldn’t I get to the weight I wanted by the end of summer, sell 100 more fish tacos, or cater one more big wedding?
I then decided to open my ears and listen to those around me. First I heard the young girls in Flashbacks in Sag Harbor talking about reaching their goal of making $4,000 for the summer but unfortunately spending $5,000.
Then it was my adorable three children discussing all the things they still want to squeeze in before going back to school. This coming from three children whose great mother, my lovely wife Clare, gave them an amazing summer.
All around me I heard the same lament.
“What a great summer in the Hamptons, I just wish I had done more of this or achieved that.”
Personally, I have decided that my goals do not come with an expiration date. Yes, I wanted to be at certain levels of fitness by September and I wanted to have reached certain goals, and perhaps I did not quite get to where I wanted, but who other than myself ever said all had to be achieved by Labor Day.
Why not continue moving forward, growing as a person and bettering myself through the fall, winter and spring. Then, before I know it, it will be next summer and I will have an even better belief in myself and my attitude.
I am going to press through Labor Day as those of us in the service industry do. I hope to sneak a few hours here and there to hit the beach with the kids, go fishing at Long Wharf, have dinner with Clare at the Beacon and partake of a couple of other true summer activities.
As the calendar turns to September and then October, I am going to approach each day differently from in the past. I will not lament on what more I could have or should have done at work in August but will instead concentrate on what I can do through April that can help me achieve my goals and perhaps lessen the pressure of trying to accomplish everything in 100 days.
And if there is a hot sunny day, I’m going to surprise the kids at school. I’ll bring them their swim trunks and a crab net and we can “steal” another day at Scott Cameron to make up for the one that got away in the summer.
“Live Life Summer Inspired” is my tag line for my Pete’s Endless Summer Products. It’s what I intend to do this fall, winter and spring so I can approach next summer at a healthy jog, rather than a 50-yard, all-out sprint.
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