I will never forget the day that I made a misplay in the final four of the national championship of Pokémon cards. This misplay cost me the game. But what were the odds of me making that misplay? Could I have changed the odds of this happening and how? In the end, because of this misplay, I missed out of the chance to go to the world championship that year (in the U.S.A.). Would have been nice right?
So odds are weird, they are everywhere and there are always odds of let’s say X happening. What the odds are of X happening, we don’t necessarily know. What we do know is that we can change the odds of X happening or not happening and that’s where it gets interesting.
Odds
Let’s start to take a look at the world in odds. Let’s take my life as an example since I’m the one writing this article. Recent things I stopped and started doing are:
- I stopped playing basketball
- I started to talk to more strangers
- I started to experiment with things I have never done before
- I started living more healthy with a good diet, enough sleep and some exercise every day.
I hear you think ‘good for you Olaf, thanks for showing off, but please explain how this matters.’ What I want to show is how these things each chance the odds of certain things in my life happening. I stopped playing basketball. This decreased the chance of me ever winning a championship in basketball. It also decreased the chance of me getting an injury. These are just some fun examples, but once you start seeing the bigger picture, it starts to matter.
Stop playing basketball means I have more time to experiment with things I haven’t done before. This will give me higher odds of finding something else that I like faster than if I would have kept playing basketball. Talking to strangers increases the odds of meeting people that I actually like. Instead of letting the randomness of the universe decide whenever I would talk to a stranger and maybe like them. Now I do it myself. I can pick the person, I can start talking and I can see if I like them. Having more people in your network that you like gives you a lower chance of feeling alone. This again gives lower odds of getting a depression, burnout or bore-out.
In the same way, the odds change when I start living more healthy. More food gives me more energy, this increases the odds of my actually starting to do something (since I have energy.) So it will increase the chance of me doing exercise. Exercise will increase the odds of having a better overall health. It will decrease the odds of getting sick, feeling weak and it increases the odds of feeling happy (yes exercise actually increases the chance of feeling happy.)
The connection
Once you start seeing that everything has to do with odds. You can start seeing that everything is connected. It’s not a miracle that someone who takes very good care of themselves and develops him or her self very well will be more likely to have a high paid job. They increased the odds of this happening and by doing so that created it.
This doesn’t mean that everyone with a high paid job takes very good care of themselves and has developed him or herself very well. It just means that when you do it, the chance of it happening is more likely. This doesn’t guarantee you anything, let’s be clear about that.
The game
Life is really like a game, with a million subgames. Imagine we’re playing poker. If you know anything about poker, you can play the odds. Certain hands are better to play than other hands, that’s a fact. Then how you play them matters as well to increase the odds of winning. That’s why you can bluff (having low odds of winning), but play it the right way and increase the odds of winning so much that you can actually win.
Sadly you can’t win every hand. You simply can’t play the odds well enough to always win. The same things count for playing the odds in the game of life, you can’t win all the time. Luckily enough the game of life takes a lot longer than a game of poker. This means that you can play way more hands, this increases your total odds of winning the game. Every hand, choice, bet or raise matters. Every subgames influences the bigger game a little bit. It’s fine to fuck up a 100 or a 1000 times because there are so many subgames. But you have to try to play every hand the right way.
“Okay Olaf, I see that you like poker. Can we please get back to real life examples?” Sure we can. So every choice, eating healthy or not, going to exercise or not, doing your homework or not, will influence your life and the results of your life. The hand you were giving at the start of your life might be lucky or unlucky (some people are born in a wealthy country or family, others aren’t.) The only thing we can do is play our hand in the right way, every time. And the right way just depends on what you want to achieve. Because winning the game of life is a bit different from winning a game of poker. Winning the game of life means doing what you want to do. This means that you might want to change your odds in a different way then I want to change mine.
Daniel Negreanu, a poker legend, once said in an interview that eating healthy helps him to be better at poker. This is a nice example of how he uses his tactical pokermind in the real world. He understands that by eating healthy, he will increase making the right choice because he has the energy and fitness to do so.
I hope that you understand me now when I say that anybody that’s born in the U.S.A. has a chance of becoming president. Some people might have gotten a better hand then others, but just as in poker you can win with a shitty hand in the game of life if you play the odds the right way.
Life is a game of odds and you’re already playing it if you want it or not. Every choice you make chances some odds of something happening and something not happening. Being aware of this can be a very powerful tool since you can change the odds. And whenever something shitty happens, you can understand that’s just the odds. Shitty things will always happen, cause even if you have an 80% chance of only good things happening. The 20% of shitty things will happen to you. Shitty things will always happen, you won’t always be happy. We can only change the odds, so we’re more likely to be happy.
Playing the ‘right’ way
As I said before, the right way can be different depending on what you want to reach. Although this is true, there are some things that can help anybody to reach what they want to reach. Why is this similar to all of us? Because we’re simply all humans. Our genes are a lot similar because of this. So, to get the best out of our bodies, we can kind of focus on similar basic things. Here are some things you can do to increase the odds of achieving whatever you want to achieve:
- Eating the right (amount of) food, gives you energy.
- getting enough sleep, around 8 hours. This will give you more emotional stability and an overall better feeling.
- Exercising for at least half an hour every day, this will keep you fit. Mentally this will let your brain work more efficiently and you will have a higher chance of feeling good about yourself.
- Having close relationships and work on them. Friends and family are very important to have. They will give you energy. As a human being, you’re a social being and you need close relationships.
- Expand your knowledge in something that will help you to achieve what you want.
- Overall enjoyment. It’s important that each of the things listed a both is worth spending time and money on to find a way to enjoy them. Don’t just do them like everyone does, try to find a way that suits you and that you’re able to do them every day. For me, that’s making tasty, but healthy smoothies that I can bring with me during the day.
There is an important thing to note here. Again the list above is divided into odds. Not everybody needs 8 hours of sleep, this is an average. It’s likely that you do need 8 hours of sleep, but there are people that need less and more. Just like eating 2500 kcal a day is an average for what men should eat a day. This doesn’t mean everybody should eat this. It’s just a nice starting point for living healthy. From there on out you can change things in a way that fits you better.
I hope you enjoyed the article. Writing this was very nice since I’m always thinking in odds and I never wrote it out. If you enjoyed it, leave a like, comment or share the article. If you’re more interested in what I’m doing, check out my story at: https://obooij.com/2018/10/10/o-booij/#more-289