I’m in a discouraged mood today. This usually happens when I get up late by accident. I always feel like doing nothing all day when I get up late for some reason. I forgot to set an alarm last night so I woke up at 11 am, and my meh mood caused me to stay in bed until 1 pm.
I’m pretty discouraged regarding poker, not gonna lie. It’s frustrating for me because I understand variance in poker and I don’t want to get discouraged. I want to be able to just get over it when I whiff everything, I want to be fine with being down a bunch of buy-ins because that’s how it is.
It’s just that I feel like I’ve been trying to force myself to “get over it” all year. I did this the entire time I was playing cash, I did it when I pretty much bubbled the final table in the ladies event in February, and I did it the few times I decided to play online tournaments. I just feel like it’s never going to end… and then I hate myself for feeling this way because I know I’m being ridiculous.
At the start of the year I quit my full time job with enough money to pay my bills for a year. I decided to work part time for FTR and play poker. I thought that this year I would try to become better at poker, hopefully win some money, and also hopefully figure out what I want to do with my life along the way.
I probably have become a better poker player (results would not indicate it so it’s kind of hard to tell), but I definitely haven’t won money and I definitely have no idea what I want to do with my life. Obviously my savings are dwindling, so I also feel like I am running out of time. If I don’t start winning money playing poker, I will have to get a full time job, and at this point I am desperate to not do that. It’s been 9 months since I quit my other job and I have to say that I dread working full time for someone. Maybe it’s because I need to find the right job. Maybe it’s because I am somewhat unemployable.
By unemployable I don’t mean that I am a bad employee. In fact, I think I am pretty much as good as it gets when it comes to being an employee because I understand what it’s like to employ someone. I ran a Student Works Painting business for 3 years, and I employed around 20 people over those years. It was a lot of work but it was a great experience. I made $50k profit during my last year doing it… so it didn’t make me rich, but I made more money than most people do when they’re 22 years old.
I’m unemployable because I’ve been my own boss for too long. It’s difficult for me to be somewhere every day when someone else wants me to be there. It’s difficult for me to hear that I can’t have a day off unless I book it 2 months in advance, and even then I still am not guaranteed that day off. I hate having to desperately look forward to long weekends because I want that extra day off so badly. It seems to me that working 9 to 5 for someone else causes people to do one thing: look forward to their days off. Because that’s all I felt when I was working full time the year after I graduated from university.
What I really want is freedom. I have learned that I value freedom more than anything else. When I was younger, I used to think that I valued money more than anything else. I wanted to get the best job possible or I wanted to start a business. I wanted to work like a dog for the next 30 years building up my wealth as much as possible.
There is definitely part of me that still wants the security of a lot of money, a healthy retirement savings, good health benefits, and a sweet pension. But then the other part of me asks myself what the point of having money is if you can’t use it. Who cares if I can afford that vacation to Scotland if I’m not even allowed to book the time off?
I supppose that if I worked according to my original plan, I could enjoy the money when I’m 50/60 years old and be happy when I’m older. But it seems like a waste to not have some awesome memories from my 20s because I was too busy working like a maniac. I always wasted my university summers running that painting business. I can honestly say that I have no good memories of 2006 to 2009 because I was too busy trying to graduate or make money.
My dad whole heartedly disagrees with me. He wants me to get a full time job and start working towards 12 weeks of vacation (apparently my aunt gets that working for a hospital, wow). He told me to give up trying to find a job that I “like” because I won’t find it. He said everyone hates their job, so live with it. He said it’s all about the money.
I just don’t see the point in life if all I’m going to do is get up every day and be miserable. I don’t see the point. I don’t want to wake up on Monday and automatically wish it could be Friday. Why shouldn’t I spend time trying to find something I enjoy?
The fact is that if I were to get a full time job tomorrow, I would be spending the next 40 years of my life doing it until I retire (assuming no career change). Spending the next 40 years doing something I despise just so that I can buy a house and have a “good life” seems ridiculous to me. Working for 40 years doing something I hate so that I can have a good retirement when I’m too old to do a lot of things seems equally ridiculous. I should throw away 40 years so that I can enjoy 10-20 years of being old when it’s all said and done?
I didn’t mean to start ranting. If anyone was going to read this entry before, they definitely won’t now because it’s way too long 😛 I know my dad means well and just wants me to be happy. Money alone won’t make me happy, though.
Today is a day off from poker for me. Tomorrow I’m having lunch with my aforementioned dad and then I’m going to play a late session since MiniFTOPS Event 1 is 6 pm.
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