Abandoning Opportunity for Growth

Don’t the two go hand in hand? Yes, but the question is what are you growing?

After I finally found a new, simpler, off-the-cuff way to shoot videos for my book Youtube channel, I was so excited, I wondered if I could apply the same mode of creation to another project I was secretly dreaming about: making videos about Pokémon card collecting.

I’ve been a day one Pokémon fan since the late 90s, and ever since getting back into collecting the cards in late 2023, I’ve been sharing occasional lessons about the hobby on this blog. The truth is there are plenty more where those came from, and I’m cautious about not droning on too much about one topic.

Youtube is probably the number one channel for Pokémon coverage as is, and with video, you can get more information out faster. Every day, the idea became a little more appealing. Then, I actually shot a video. It worked well enough, and I’m now sitting on a raw file that would need little editing.

Once I sat down to gear up for the kickoff, however, I paused. I reflected on all the additional effort it would take to not just start but maintain, let alone grow the channel. I looked around, sitting between books, wedding decorations, and Pokémon cards, and realized: This will be a massive distraction. And, worse so, a detraction to my aspirations as a writer.

The main reason everything related to Pokémon feels alluring is that it’s easy. The entire sector is ripe with opportunity, and whatever I touch seems to turn out well from a collecting angle as well as a financial one. Even my occasional posts on Reddit sometimes go through the roof. But opportunity to make a number go up is only one kind of growth—and, often, not the right one.

It sucks that writing and selling books is hard. But if that’s what I want to do, then I’ll have to pay the entry fee. Only there can I find the growth that I need, whatever it may look like. Chances are, it won’t start with big numbers going up fast—but that doesn’t make it the wrong type of growth.

Through my reflections, I realized: I don’t have an end goal for Pokémon card collecting. It’s not like I want to own every card, every set of a certain era, or a Base Set booster box. I don’t dream about meeting the voice actors or famous Youtubers. I don’t care about running a shop. I enjoy everything in Pokémon, but there’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for me—except, perhaps, the literal goal of using it to make money, which I can still do as part of being in the hobby. But I don’t care much about being a Pokémon millionaire either.

Books, meanwhile, don’t get me started. Sell 100,000 copies? Yes please! Become a New York Times best-selling author? Ohhh yeah. There are real, tangible goals there—and even without them, I would still die as happy as a claim if I spent the rest of my days mostly reading and writing books.

It’s hard to abandon opportunity for growth—but it’s right. You already know what to do. May you find the resolve to stay on the path of meaning.