Thank you I'm happy that I can help! I appreciate your readership :P

It appears I have allowed myself to let everything I was ambitious about fall to the wayside in recent months.

How has this happened?

I suppose being enveloped in a form of self pity has been the culprit, or perhaps something more destructive has begun to emerge.

I've been pondering for some time now what to do with my life. While being overly aware of the way other people may perceive me, I feel as though I have allowed an omnipresent fear of failure to intrude upon my life.

I know deep down I'm letting the "simplicities" of life overwhelm me because I wish to be in control of my life, and it has been hard letting this go. It has been hard to follow through, to stay positive while a very real cloud of doubt is hovering above my head.

I believe that while I have accomplished much in these past months, I have this urge to overshadow them with anger and resentment.

Troubling thoughts cross my mind regularly. Thoughts such as "You were fine living life the way you were." and "What was really so bad about the life you lived?"

Ha.

As if there is a little demon whispering in my ear, telling me all the things I don't want to hear.

*sigh*

I have been through so much in my life, and yet the most difficult thing for me to go through has been acclimating to a normal life.

With the absence of the thrill in surviving, there has been left an emptiness. It's funny actually, when I really think about the perplexities of my contradicting thought process. Wanting and not wanting something at the same time. Being stuck in between a seemingly endless contemplation. I feel as though I've thrust myself into limbo. I know it was the best move to make, I'm just unsure of if there will ever be a resolute outcome.

This is life though, with endless possibilities full of intrigue.

Ah well, I'm beginning to wonder myself how this all turns out.

Hey stranger - been a while....

What you've written is actually very common.....
I've battled things in the past - and while you do feel a sense of accomplishment when you battle back from whatever it is that ailed you- the big void is left for being accustomed to running around mach 10 with your hair on fire...
I associate it similarly to say Peyton Manning announcing his retirement today
Athletes struggle with life after sports because they miss the comradery, the competition, the years of preparedness of training camp, having a mission where all their hard work pays off and they can go win a game and compete

This is really no different - the key is finding things that fulfill you more
Try to take time to go do something you have always wanted to do but haven't.....
Try to add some diversity to your schedule - change things up
It can be something as simple as "Well, Tuesdays I normally shave my legs..."
Well, this week do it on a Thursday
Okay - strange analogy, but you get the idea
One of the hardest things to do is overcome any addiction - but it can be even tougher when it gets less rewarding and you feel there is no means to the ends
Dig deep - find ways to change things up and know just because you take one day at a time, that doesn't mean all days have to be the same!!!

Hope you're well
I'm around if you need me

Scott

I'm wondering if your having a hard time relaxing!
http://lifehacker.com/how-you-can-le...lax-1548045887
I know i do and i'm just dealing with badbeat poker. Your plate is almost full and yet you keep it together!
A music piece that exemplifies keep it simple
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rab9HTzaY88

👀

Update?

I miss the updates hope everything is solid

Sorry about the lack of updates, I didn't realize it's been so long!

All in all, I'm doing really good. I'm still not drinking and I have been putting in a lot of hours into online poker, and studying much more than I was before. I started looking into all kinds of stat charts and graphs for my online Hand History. Finding stuff that helps me understand what everything means is a challenge, but it's something new so it's fun for now

Not much of interest to talk about really these days, I don't do much outside of poker and playing with my 6 month old puppy. He's certainly a handful. Currently he is losing his teeth, so I found a couple of those. Is it weird if I keep them?

I have been working on ideas for my website too, but it's nothing close to presentable. I'm trying to do it myself, so I feel more like it's mine and such. I've figured out how to do most of it, so right now I guess I just have to prepare some "substance" :P

I haven't figured if I'm going to go to Vegas this year for WSOP yet. I would very much like to go, but it's up in the air at the moment for a few personal reasons.

So, I'm actually pretty happy for once.

WTG!
Looks Solid
Twitch also has a few good poker streamers that are fun to watch and easy to learn from.

So i thought it would be good to follow up here on this thread to let everyone know that today I am celebrating a year free from booze and drugs. For those of you who have read my story here, you know I have come a far way from where I was.

I feel I owe a special thanks and appreciation to this community. Although I may not have posted in the right place originally, and there were a few people who thought the worst of me and my intentions, I believe I was able to grow from sharing my story.

I'll be playing at the Hard Rock series next week and I am grateful to be able to continue bettering myself as a person and a poker player.

Life is a funny thing, and has been quite the ride so far. I have all the ambition to continue doing the next right thing. What ever that may be, and where ever that may be, I am looking forward to it.

Congrats on a year free from booze and drugs!

GL at the hard rock too, I plan to read through your whole blog when I have time but just stumbled on it now and think it's pretty interesting.

Congrats on the sobriety milestone, you should be super proud!

Thank you! Good luck to you too! I apprecite the read as well

I definitely am, thank you!

A year sober is no joke, congrats and hope you run well

Appreciate it

Wow congratulations Such a long way in a very short time. Strong. You should be very proud of yourself. Hang on and keep on keeping on!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr90nxs7P-8

Thank you <3

And it gets Better Every Year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pafY6sZt0FE

Fantastic to see. Congrats and best wishes

I met the most interesting guy in the world last night on the poker table. Here is the full story ��

His name is Donavan, and he's 54.

The man is wearing a scruffy old baseball cap with an indistinguishable decal on the front, the hat is a faded Jean color almost. He paired this with a button up shirt, and a nice watch.

The man is soft spoken, and is diligently trying to engage in conversation with both ends of the poker table from the middle in seat 5. I am sitting across from him, so I was one easiest to converse with.

So Donavan starts off by telling us about this "anything goes" festival in Russia (if I'm not mistaken). He talks about how everyone is selling everything, it's all cool. It's like Burning Man but "with more drugs and sex if you can believe it"

He says "If you have the yellow suitcase, you get in for free. Probably the guys selling those drugs. Here are the pics I took while I was there." As he hands his phone to us to look at. Sure enough, these pictures were full of just about everything. (I'll leave out TMI details here about the pictures lol I'm sure you can imagine.)

So then he goes on to tell us how he backpacked through South America playing poker. It was in Argentina where he made $50k in a cash game but they wouldn't let him leave the country with it, so he tried to buy up all the food and strippers he could before he left. I think he managed to blow 10k before he decided to exchange it for half as much in order to leave the country.

Donavan isn't a flashy man, you wouldn't really look at him twice. Yet there was an honesty in his eyes that was undeniable. He never stayed in fancy hotels, he preferred the company at the local hostels he would crash at for $5 a night. "Why pay for something I'm not gonna use?" He said when explaining how he would respond to the women that would see him with tons of cash and tell him he should do this or that with his money.

"She would ask me how I did, and if I was like 'Oh, I lost like $2k, or $4k' she would go crazy! She would tell me I needed to get nice things, and then when I came back that night and said I won 20k she was blown away. I won so much money I went into the bathroom and taped it all over my body. I didn't want to walk out of the casino holding a bag of money!" As he makes the gesture resembling holding a bag of money in the air.

He tells us he winds up taping all the money he won under the hostel bed so he could go out and party. Says he is so hungover the next day he leaves it there. He asks a friend who was still in town to go get it, but alas the friend claims he couldn't find it.

But this is Donavan, a too cool guy with a too cool kinda name for this story to have a bad ending.

Two years later our friend travels back to the hostel he left his money at in Argentina, hoping to cure his ever wondering curiosity of what really happened to it. When he arrives he finds that the room where he stored the money was shut off, and every day he would ask the lady to let him in. When she would ask why, he would only say "I left something in there last time I was here and want to see if it's still here." He asked until finally one day she let him in, as long as she watched.

So he goes in under the bed, and there it was. All the money was still there. As he goes to pull the bag out, it rips and money pours out going everywhere. "The woman was like 'Oh my god, you're a drug dealer!' and I told her 'No, I'm not! It's just from playing poker!' but she didn't believe me." He said laughing and shaking his head.

This man is humble, full of life and vibrant. He has been to over 200 countries while traveling abroad, and speaks fluent Russian and Spanish. He was playing without a care in the world while the guy next to me takes at least $1000 off of him in the 2/5 game. Donavan calls this guy "The Swed" and continues with "I run bad against Swedish guys, this one guy got me good he sucked out on me for $8k. I'm not mad, I like Sweds, I just run bad against them." as he laughs a little with a bigger smile.

This guy brought the game to life, I'm really happy I got to meet such a great human being. The whole experience has given me a renewed motivation for life. His story defines living life to the fullest, in the best way you can. Nothing is impossible, so don't quit your day dream!

Great story. Thank you. And, I'm very happy for you and your new life.
GLGL.

Awesome guy, you tell the story well too.

great story well told put to a song

Originally posted this same thing on FB, thought I would share it here to possibly start a discussion.

Have you ever taken a moment to think about what would make the world a better place?

In a world with so much angst,
Can we understand the suffering is universal.

In a world where we don't all eat,
Can we offer food to a stranger.

In a world where our thoughts grow,
Can we build upon their power.

In a world where reality is different for everyone,
Can we make a change.

Passing judgment on one person so as to defend another is a tactic that results in divided halves of a whole.

Each and every single person on this planet has a life. (Right.) Some wish to live that life, and others do not.

When I think about what I would do to make the world a better place, I can't help but be stuck on how one sided that notion is when there are millions of people in the world just right now.

So I've realized that you can't make the world a better place by focusing on one individual issue. It has to be all of the issues. All of the issues matter, everywhere.

There are fights for freedom that have been lost. Oppression and neglect runs rampant, WORLDWIDE.

We fight for power, for tangible rights, for food and shelter. We fight for education, healthcare, and recreational activities. We fight for our freedom to love who we want, our freedoms based solely on our tangible bodies.

After necessities are taken care of, it's the intangible that makes life worth living.

Many people say that if they had a million dollars they would be happy, that all they need is money and everything would be better. These are the same people who go on to envy the rich, wishing to knock them off their high horse. Only we know not what their lives have been like, we can not judge what they do with their money.

That's because it's not about the money for us, it's about the happiness. At least, that's what I see.

Deep down we don't need the money, we need the compassion towards each other. We need to see past the media propaganda to see it all for what it is.

We are scared because we don't like what's happening and we know where we are heading.

We can continue down this road where everyone fights everyone on everything, or we can stand United.

What would you do differently with the world so that it would make it a better place for all, not just you?

In a world where the sandman rules,
Will you wake up?