Here’s one of the first lessons you’ll learn if you join the Pokémon card hobby: You’ll never be able to keep up with everything. There’s too much happening too quickly for any one person to follow, let alone master.
Beyond the thousands of individual cards, dozens of sets, and many different verticals, from grading to sealed products to promos to mini sets, themed cards, master sets, and more, The Pokémon Company releases new sets every two months. Most of them contain between 100 and 200 cards. Most of those come in different variations. If you don’t pick your arena and pick it quickly, you’ll drown in information and little else.
When I first rejoined the hobby after decades, I foolishly thought I could master each new set. Ha! Now, I know that even in collecting along the specific themes I’ve chosen—which might still be too many on their own—I’ll have to skip entire sets to maintain my sanity. It’s not even a matter of financial fatigue, though that, too, is a factor, of course. Even if you had infinite money and nothing else to do, you’d quickly burn out facing infinite possibilities.
Last summer, Pokémon released a special set. A double set. That’s twice the cards. Thankfully, it was themed after a generation of Pokémon I barely know, let alone care about. I was actually happy. “Yup. I’ll sit this one out! Woo!” It was a relief to decide not to participate. That choice is open to you more often than you realize.
Your attention makes it subjects valuable. But in order to dedicate it to things, first, you must carve it out of an empty space. That space is created by what you reject. If you don’t deny, you have nothing to work with. That’s why it’s not only perfectly fine to sit one out. It’s essential—for it creates the space that will hold your most important efforts. Find comfort and confidence every time you hit “Skip.”
