Fires Aren’t Everything

If you’re always putting out fires, you’ll never have time to start any.

You can’t innovate if you’re spending all of your time reacting to urgencies and emergencies.

A well-ordered life is a creative life.

If you don’t use your freedom to create your own boundaries, your life will be filled with a bunch of involuntary boundaries that smother your freedom.

How can you say “yes” to your vision of the possible if you can’t ever say “no” or “not now” to anything?

If you have a fire, do what’s necessary to keep things from burning to the ground, but don’t forget to create space in your day to invest in the kinds of possibilities that can only emerge when you’re in a state of play.

The fires might seem to mean everything in the present moment, but your future will be determined by the things you make time for before and between the fires.