...is what I had to say to myself: Out loud!

Don't you have such experiences? You get so drawn into something it starts to dominate your life? Consuming all your free time?

Recently this happened with me playing a poker game that I need to bring to halt. Nothing to do with money or something like that, since I was playing with virtual money, solely.

I guess it was the early days of COVID times giving most of us more free time, that drove me to open the Governor of Poker app on my phone I already had installed a few years ago. A few versions later, making my first moves, slowly I was sucked into playing this game every single day for the past three or so months. Initially didn't spend too much time, but gradually this increased week-by-week, day-by-day. A few days ago, I was shocked to realise I spend up to 6 hours a day playing this game!

6 hours! Where did I get access to all that time? What was I missing out on? Am I waisting my life?

That night - all questions unanswered - I turned back to playing another round of poker; Lost 10 to 15% of my chips in half an hour or so; Tried to re-coupe the lost chips with playing blackjack; Lost 80% of my stack in a few rounds; I decided instantly to completely stop playing, wondering if I can hold myself to the promise I made myself. This was two days ago. Since then, only opened the app to leave some messages to my team members to excuse myself for not becoming active anymore for the foreseeable future.

Am not sure how I'm feeling about all of this, to be honest. I somehow miss playing the game. I miss the chats I had with the team. I miss 'walking' the road towards a goal. Logically I tell myself, I should be very happy. I came to the realisation, I'm not particular fond of poker, or gaming in general. This app drove me to spend more and more hours playing it, since it had all this challenges and rewards, the more time one spends, the more points and rewards became available. But for what purpose? To become one of the top players? Would take me years to get there!

Sure, the game taught me to take less risks, to have patience, to wait for the perfect opportunities. This could be something that would better myself in real life, but its questionable if such experiences and lessons from a poker game will effect my earthly life. Maybe? Maybe not? :)

That said...Do I need this lesson? When so, didn't I already learned this lesson by the realisation that I indeed became a poker player with more patience, with less daily losses and more gains, playing less the true gambling games like blackjack and the slot machine? Didn't I transform myself in taking less risks already?

Note: The last round of playing poker didn't show I learned a lesson since I was taking HUGE risks; Risks I may have taken unconsciously though; Too drive me away from the game and give my life back :)

In real life, I'm not risk averse, but I take less risks than I took in playing the poker game. In real life I'm already learning from those few moments I took quite a lot of risks that impacted my life tremendously, That said, a life without risks, is a boring life! I need to take big risks in my life, from time to time, thats for sure! :)

Interestingly, this afternoon when spending some time surfing my couch, drinking some great coffee, zipperdeezapping the television, I saw myself watching this program "Million Dollar Listing: NY"; A program about a bunch of real-estate agents. One of these agents was pouring his heart out; He felt not happy; Through an impossible deal he had to make, he discovered he needed to take more risks again in his work, his career, his life. So funny this passed by my eyes and ears, while the poker game was trying to teach me quite to opposite.

I know for a fact, I will think about and analyse the last few months for a long time to come. Now I have all this time available again. Time I shall use to pickup my life again now we are not so much in a lockdown anymore. Time to visit friends (I turned down several invitations in the past few weeks because I needed the time for poker). Time to put my mind to stuff I really like, such as reading the newest paper by the guys of TAU/Agoras (source). Time to cook decent meals (more and more I was ordering food). Time to clean my apartment (it became quite a mess over the last period). Time to watch some great movies. Time to discover new music. WOW, so much time available, for so many things my life was about before I opened the poker app!

While writing this, it almost feels like I waisted my life the last three to four months. That said, I never regret what I did. My philosophy is to never regret what we did, since regret will bring ourselves in a negative spiral. We shall also not just forget what we did; We shall try and learn from it. That's what I'm gonna do; Learn from it! One thing I already learned, is that I have a mechanism to prevent disasters; I already knew this, but always great to see this mechanism working. It caused me to stop playing the game to give me the time to start living my life again which should bring me more happiness than a poker game can ever give me.

NJOY & BE HAPPY