Salvation Lies Within

All this blog really is sometimes is venting my daily or weekly grievances through written word. Its like a shitty form of psychiatry. Its like who wants to pay out 100 smackers an hour when they can just write it down. And some people may even read this. And maybe I can get some more comments than usual, and feel some positive feedback. I really can't believe my last post did not receive any comments, it was quite extensive.
Anyway its not like this all the time, mostly I'm writing happy cheery stuff right? Talking about exciting plans or new revelations in my mind concerning poker. Revelations that bring me closer to complete harmony and make me truly understand the game and myself. A transition when complete will make me totally impervious to worldly desires and fully one with nature and the universe. Therefore making poker nothing but an enjoyable and profitable activity, regardless of the situation. My full potential must be reached, and upon grasping it I will be flawlessly at peace within. I still feel it is a long road and the majority has not been completed, but most players are not even visible in my rear view mirror.
I'm not talking about skill of course, skill like reading people, betting, tilt control, stamina. I'm talking about the poker mindset, the ability to understand the game and deal with its brutal swings with complete serenity. The ultimate skill, the perfect poker mindset. Its actually similar to Buddhism when you consider how far my poker mindset has come. I now am at the point where I see we must all accept whatever money/luck/fortunate cards the game is willing to give us. Anger or frustration over losing/bad beats/swings is strictly forbidden. And even happiness when things are going well should not be embraced. You must stay neutral and emotionless at all times. For keeping your good emotions from getting out, even though they are good, is beneficial, cause they will only serve as a stark contrast to the bad emotions your are trying to avoid when it all goes awry. Happy all time, or neutral, or at peace and accepting of all things, is what we are striving for.
You can be really good at reading people, betting, understanding the game, patience, and tilt control. These are the exterior skills one must have. The interior skill is your poker mindset, the peace within yourself in some ways its the same thing as patience and tilt control, but if you delve deeper its very different. Its easy with enough practice to be able to force yourself not to go on tilt for a whole session(6 hours) and patience is in a way a matter of choice and priority. I mean yeah its hard to fold all your bad hands and never play unless you have a strong holding, but with if it was a matter of life or death you could do it no problem. The true poker mindset is one of harmony with yourself and the world, upon achievement you don't have to worry about things like tilt, patience, greed, or compulsiveness cause you will no longer feel the need for typical human response. Your nothing without the interior skill, all the exterior skill in the world can only get you so far.
I do believe life circumstances directly effect ones success in poker, as in any sort of venture to succeed. And life circumstances can effect your poker mindset, a big bankroll is key. Once you have the bankroll or the resources to get one, and you have all the exterior skills, it is within your best interest to strive toward complete harmony.
I feel I am fortunate to have semi wealthy parents so I do have the resources to get a nice bankroll, even though I am currently broker than most, even in this economy, damn. I have rather exceptional exterior skill and still striving for complete harmony with myself and the game.
I've been testing myself as of late and trying to build another bankroll from scratch, I won 60 cents in a freeroll on pokerstars. I decided to play super low stakes to try and build it up. Why not? I got nothing to lose. Well I got it up to 10 bucks. I then downswung to 7 bucks and decided to play a 6 dollar tourny. This is a poor bankroll decision, but since the money I had was so little it didn't really matter and decided if I don't get at least 25-30 bucks together this shit isn't worth the time. I caught a full house and checkraised my opponent all in on the river, putting him on a flush. I knew he would call cause I had him on flush and I knew it was a great spot to raise all in. So he called my all in and I was right he had a flush. To bad it was a straight flush. I'm broke.
Think I still have like 7 cents.
I figured it shouldnt matter what stakes I'm playing as long as I play the game sound and manage my money as well as possible. But I got frustrated by the low super low so frigen low and pathetic waste of time stakes and didn't play as well as I could've. I'm not gonna chalk it up to regression upon my road toward complete harmony, it really is too low of stakes to take serious.
Once I have my cafe, start getting some income from there, start playing poker as a secondary income, get at least 1000 bucks online, play at least 25 max buy in poker, then, no excuses. Honestly? I feel the money is gonna roll in, just pour in like craziness, it's gonna feel unreal. The strength of my bankroll, the security of a separate income source is going to open up new doors for me and poker is going to be easier than ever before.
When your mindset reaches its pinnacle of harmony and understanding, you will be completely at peace within. Its all there, within you, you must find it. It will help you immensely in poker, and make you a better person in life. We can't control everything, but we can give ourselves the best fate possible if nothing ever clouds our judgment and we continue to always make the best possible decision. That's were you go wrong in poker, cause things inevitably go wrong, and then our judgment suffers. You can't prevent the inevitable unfortunate event, but you can find peace, or salvation within, and you will be strong enough to continue to think clearly no matter the circumstance.
I'm sure I will continue this discussion at a later date. As for now remember this: your loss in poker is another man's gain, and your gain is another man's loss. So instead of rejoicing when you win and snickering when you lose, remind yourself that the whole world does not revolve around you. Everyone deserves their chance to be a winner and everyone will inevitably be a loser. If you always won everyone else would always lose. So see the table as a whole, and you are just one small part of it, all of the parts make it what it is. Without everyone there would be no game, so don't fall into the normal human emotion that tells you need to win to be happy. Don't be happy, don't be sad, just be.