"You Just Gotta Not Do It, Man. That's all."

The more I think about time, the things I want to do, and the things I need to do, the more I think about Mr. Badger as he councils Mr. Fox in his tidy underground bankers office in Wes Anderson’s version of Roald Dalh’s beloved Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Badger is suggesting that the house Fox wants would be better left un-bought seeing that it poses a real temptation to Fox’s thieving nature. The house, being situated close to three plentiful and cruel farmers would be too much for Fox to handle, and they would be merciless to Fox and his family if he failed a raid. Badger says,

“In summation, I think you just gotta not do it, man. That’s all.”

When vigilant, I think about this council whenever a new opportunity looks too good to pass up. Why? Because doing something new, anything new, is so often saying “no” to the things I’ve previously committed to.

I would describe myself as ambitious, having more ideas than time to execute them, many of you are like this too and it’s this sort of person I have in mind for this council. For us, it’s often times far more difficult to “not do” some new opportunity, to not start executing the fun new idea we just had in the shower. It’s easy for us to plunge, with vigor, into the new, “blue sky” project getting further and further ahead with it, all the while we are getting further and further away from our old commitments, our comic, graphic novel, book, youtube video essays, etc.

I think our time is very much like a pie chart, take a piece out for one project and you subtract time from all of the others. Failing to understand our time limitations and our proclivities to be excited about the new is far more dangerous than we realize. I’m 30 years old this year, with luck and God’s good grace I’ll have maybe 50 or 60 more years to live, which sounds a long time, until I realize just how little I’ve accomplished in 30 years. Scary!

So be warned, and be wary of the plentiful fields that are not your own, they will beguile you into the grave with nothing much to show for your life. Stay working in your own plot of land so you can one day reap the benefit of your own crop. And what’s more, so the rest of us can as well! A harvest will feed many, so will a good book, comic, podcast, youtube channel, etc.

You just have to “not do” those “other things,” that’s all.