Philosophy Of The Beef

You may remember Shia LaBeouf as Louis Stevens in the hit Disney show “Even Stevens” or as Stanley Yelnats in the Disney movie “Holes”. If you weren’t a Disney kid back in the day you might know him as Sam Witwicky from the god awful “Transformer” movie franchise.

Despite his many performances, I will always remember him at his peak. The best of all his performances. Of course I am speaking about his “Just Do It” video.

The “Just Do It” video is one of my favorite videos on the internet and for those of you who haven’t seen it give it a watch… you’re welcomed. What was it that compelled Shia to post this? What was his reason? Was this his attempted debut as a motivational speaker? Was it a mental breakdown? Perhaps an attempt to become a spokesman for Nike? The world may never know.

As funny as the video is I think there is an important lesson Mr.LaBeouf is trying to get at here and I think it’s worth delving into.

“JUST DO IT! Make your dreams come true!”

Maybe he’s presenting it a bit weird but the man’s got a point. If you take this speech out of its weird angry cocaine induced presentation, his statements are pretty profound. “JUST DO IT!” isn’t just a Nike ad. What I think Shia is getting at here is that “just doing it” is an answer to many of life’s big questions. A lot of times in life we have these big problems that we tend to avoid for stupid reasons. People ask stupid questions like “How do I ask out that cute girl from the gym?” or “How do I ask my boss for that promotion?” These big existential questions that eat at you for days on end usually have a pretty simple answer once you take a step back. In fact, the answer is in the question.

How do you ask out the girl? You ask her out to on a date. How do you ask for that promotion? This may come as a shock, but you go to your boss… and ask him or her for the promotion. Crazy, right? Sometimes these scary questions have extremely simple answers.

“Yesterday you said tomorrow So just do it”

How many times have you pushed off doing something for tomorrow? How many times have you actually done it? Unless your answer is 100% you have a lot to work on buddy. What Shia the Wise is trying to tell us here is that society has become prone to avoiding our issues by pushing them off. “I’ll go to the gym tomorrow” “I’ll stop smoking tomorrow” “I’ll break the Bank of England and destroy their economy tomorrow”  

Take the leap of faith and get it done as soon as possible. Go to the gym! Stop smoking! Short the UK’s currency and screw over an entire nation! If it’s something you want to do than get it done as soon as possible.

I’m not saying it’s easy but if it’s something you feel that you need to do than get off your ass and get it done as soon as possible. If it’s something you want to do than get it done as soon as possible.

Next time you feel like something is impossible I encourage you, nay, I demand of you, watch this video and take to heart Shia LaBeouf’s wise words. I think in life a lot of us just procrastinate and push off big decisions because we’re scared of the future. We’re scared of what’s new and what we don’t know. That’s why we procrastinate. It’s hard but sometimes you have to just get out of your comfort zone to make a change. Sometimes in order to get to a better place you have to take a chance. Sometimes you need to…

“JUST DO IT!”