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 2011, Life, Poker and All That Jazz
Well, it's a new year and I wanted some place to put my thoughts about a bunch of stuff I mean... That's what the internet is for right? So without further ado....
Warning: many of my posts may be long and opinionated rambling so if you want poker specific content it may not always be there but if it is I will put it at the end of every post so you can skip the rest if you want.
New Years Reflection.
It's always at the end of a year that I realize how interesting a concept time is. The year of 2010 seemed to go by extremely quickly and yet also dragged on forever. It reminds me that so many things and so many changes can be made in such a short time and that living in the moment is an extremely important concept to grasp. The fact is, there is a massive amount that you cannot control about the world and in the end – all we really can control is how we carry ourselves. Over the last few of years I have been in a constant struggle to find my own center and this has proved quite difficult when trying to balance the stresses of moving away from home, meeting new people at a new school, and feeling generally out of place for the first time in my life. I have always been a very optimistic person and so I treated these issues as just another character strengthening challenge that would not pose much of a problem in the long run.
However, I seem to have begun to ignore my upbringing to some extent and have noticeably fallen away from the carefree and happy high school kid I used to be. I now wake up almost every day with a slight sinking feeling of just how much I want to do and how I don't have both the time or the money to do everything. Even when I prioritize my dreams there are constant obstacles and for me failure is the absolute hardest thing to deal with. I'll admit that there are those days when I just wonder exactly what the point of doing anything is in our crazy world with billions of people filled with conflicting views and terrorized by war, sickness, poverty, and just a general lack of empathy for others. There's no denying it, the world we live in can be an extremely depressing place.
This is not to say that it is all bad! I have made a large amount of progress in examining myself over the last 6 months as I edge closer and closer to the end of my college career. I have built and maintained some incredible relationships with people and though at times my personal emotional state may be completely haywire I have begun to finally accept that I have a long way to go. I have begun to appreciate everyone that I meet much more and think that I may be at least somewhat coming out of my lone-wolf, me-against-the-world mentality. While I do feel that, at the end of the day, I am the only one I can truly depend on there is hope and benefit for us all when we band together. I have a new perspective on the importance of friends and family in my life especially after losing my physical roots in my hometown in Iowa and for that I am truly grateful.
Life is a very interesting thing and I have gained a new respect for the changes that inevitably come. I have always liked being in control and though I often have a laid back approach to things I still tend to ensure that I have my hands firmly on the reigns. It has become exceedingly clear to me this year in particular that these reigns are really just a fallacy. In the end life is going to happen as it happens and no amount of fighting to control most events is going to change the way that they come at you. What you do have control over is the way that you experience these events and learn from them. You can in this way gain the control of perspective and turn most bad situations into highly important learning ones.
It is weird and kind of cathartic for me to be writing this because I still am at a place emotionally where I am trying to fight for control despite having the mental understanding that I won't ever win my way. It does however, bring goals forward which I think are one of the more important things for those who want to see progress in their life. Working towards goals tends to give us purpose and purpose is a feeling that a lot of us lose at some point during our life. Purpose inspires us with the drive to work for something that we can control or at least guide our life's flow towards. I think that it is within finding a purpose that we are able to not only be happy and change ourselves but also facilitate change on a much more global scale. Once we are grounded in our own purpose it becomes much more easy to reach out to others and expand our purpose and their purpose and in doing so build a healthy and mutually beneficial relationship.
Alright so now I am rambling quite a bit so let's get down to business and find that purpose that I felt like I had lost for a while.
Goals for 2011:
1) Become financially more stable and able to not only support myself but also begin to pay off student loans and give back to my parents and friends, as well as giving me more freedom.
2) Continue to work towards my dreams and aspirations of what I want to do with my life without the fear or failure holding me back.
3) Also continue to examine myself and gain a better understanding of why I have become the person I am now and how to accept me for me without being so judgmental and hard.
4) Volunteer a large portion of my own time towards helping others – whether this be through charity work, being there for a friend, or educating myself about global issues that need to improve.
5) Graduate school and being “real-life”.
6) Meet and build new relationships with as many people as possible and always being willing to respect and help others.
7) Stay optimistic and ride along with the swingy nature of life instead of being pulled uncontrollably by it.
8) End the year satisfied with myself and my progress in all areas, whether this means attaining goals, working towards them, or revising them to better fit my abilities and time.
Poker Specific Goals:
1) Continue to adapt to the game and work towards crushing higher levels and better competition.
2) Continue to reign in my tilt as I have over the last month so that only my work ethic holds me back and not my money burning temper.
3) Hit 100NL at some point during 2011 and possibly use this as a platform to shoot for SuperNova status on PokerStars.
4) Become comfortable with playing for more and more money while also being able to withdraw finances without it affecting my play.
5) Play more live and go to Vegas for the WSOP regardless of whether I decide to play any events or not.
6) Profit financially, mentally and emotionally while keeping poker from controlling these areas of my life as it has some times.
Sorry for this being super long and probably sort of boring and whiny at times. I plan to continue to blog my thoughts on not only poker but also personal development as I think the two can be quite closely related and I also just like to talk about that stuff haha. I hope that those who do read my entire posts can gain something from them and I welcome comments and discussion of anything that I write about.
Good luck and much love to all in 2011.
DC
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Originally Posted by d0zer
