5. The Shade of Trees I'll Never Sit Under

There's an old maple behind one of our buildings. Bigger around than I can reach with both arms. Somebody planted it 70, maybe 100 years ago. A man I'll never meet. Gone longer than I've probably been alive.

He never sat where I sat today. The shade was never there for him.

You don't own a building. You hold it for one stretch of its long life. You are a chapter, not the author of that book.

The things that matter most, you will never see pay off. That's what a builder is. You plant them anyway.