Hey guys,

first of all thank you for beginning to read this. I don’t know how many of you will finish, because back in my head I already know this is going to become pretty tl;dr.



Next week I’m turning 30. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and realised that the last 2 years I’ve been doing pretty great as of general. I have a supercool girlfriend (that’s wayyyy hotter than me), steady job in IT with cool colleagues, decent paycheck (not too much but I am never in any financial stress whatsoever) and definitly a decent enough social life.
This has not always been the case though. After graduating my bachelors degree I really needed a few years to ‘find my way’. I guess this is a correct way of saying it. Doing some jobs I didn’t really like followed by a 2-month period of unemployment, another job of 9 months followed by a 3-month period of unemployment. In the meantime I suffered from depression which was probably going on for quite some years, but I never really thought I was depressed. I thought I was just lazy and unmotivated and a lot was wrong with me. Eventually I followed a government program to reschool to a Javascript developer and I am in my current job for 6 months. As I said I’m doing ‘fine’.

From my last year in college until about six months ago I have played poker on/off. Studying the game to a certain level but never really seeing it as a priority. I was staked by the same group twice for a few months and got decent results/learned a lot. Because of the government education program I decided to put poker on a low, because I really didn’t want to mess this up. Playing poker since March 2011 I played a low volume with a low ABI, managing to book around €10k profit in total. Most of it during my last year in college and the periods I got staked (2 months in 2015 and 2 months in 2017). I have always been very risk averse and am very proud that I never went broke in my entire ‘career’.
I always wanted to become pro or at least thought about it a lot during college, but I never really had the guts to tell anybody about my ambitions. I always thought I was wrong, trying to find shortcuts in life, people were saying poker was about to die etc. Long story short I have always been looking for other peoples approvement and did not have a strong enough personality to speak up about my goals and ambitions because they did not fit the usual picture. Telling my parents that I played poker was never an option and my girlfriend was never a fan as well. Although recently that’s changed since we are definitely communicating a lot better for the past year. She had a difficult stretch as well and we are both more aware of how important it is to have dreams and ambitions and how important it is to support other peoples’, no matter how stupid it sounds in the first place. We both made an impressive growth on a personal level and our relationship has never been stronger. I really love her and we are awesome together.

Back to real life now. Two paragraphs up I say I’m doing great with my job and all, but guess what happened just after new years? Yup: depression. Coming home from work, first thing I do is lay down in the sofa. Turning the lights out & watching the same south park and family guy episodes over and over again. Falling asleep at 7pm in the sofa, going to bed not managing to get sleep. going downstairs to watch tv again. Repeat the cycle 3-4 times every night. Eventually sleeping 3-4 hours per night, waking up like ****. Feel like **** at the job. Eating junkfood all the time. Not taking care of my body and my mind. I’m sure 99% of people like me and appreciate that I do a lot for other people in my spare time, sunday league soccer team and five-a-side football team. At the job I’ve never had the smallest confrontation or argument with a colleague, even though there are definitely some things on my mind that need to get fixed. I’m sure 0% of people know or even suspect how I feel on a daily basis since I always seem to make it my #1 priority to show other people how good I’m doing and how happy I am. **** that, I’m not.

The thing that stresses me out the most is that if I look around, it seems like I’m the only one. But I’m sure this isn’t the case. You read it in the papers, the doctor says it, yet nobody talks about it and this creates some kind of ‘fake’ expectation that everyone’s life is perfect except yours. I hope that I can help some people with this in my direct environment by asking questions when I notice that someone is in the same situation I am. Over the years I developed a ‘radar’ for this. I can sum up 3 people that I see on a weekly basis, but since it’s pretty sensitive I wonder if I should just confront them. For now maybe it’s best for me to focus on my own situation. I don’t think I can help others the best way if I feel like crap myself.

So, back to the reason why we are all here: poker . I will be playing low stakes mtt’s every day, registering from 8AM until 3PM. Playing 25 days per month. This schedule will allow me to have a pretty normal life, being able to have dinner with my girlfriend and then study some more poker in the evening. Saturdays I will study before noon, and play soccer after noon. Saturday nights or sundays will be date moments with my girlfriend. The other day will be grind day in the weekend. Not playing the sunday schedule or the big evening fields will keep variance on the lower side, which will be stress reducing for me. Goal is to keep my turbo ratio as low as possible and as I move up in stakes, maybe go for staking again. I will be playing with a more than sufficient bankroll and take regular coaching sessions. I am also in a more than decent skype group with some real crushers. My period with the staking group has learned me a lot around structurizing study moments and making a study log to keep myself accountable. This is a business that I am starting so organisation will be extremely important.

If this poker adventure would fail, I believe it would not take very long until I find a similar job. The worst thing that can happen is me losing a few K, and eventually ending up where I am at the moment.

The past 3 Fridays I have taken my resignation letter with me to work, to eventually never hand it over to my boss. This week I will do it, I promise. I’m sure it will come as a shock to most of the people and I assume some people will be unhappy. But nobody is irreplaceable so neither am I.

Whoever read this, I really would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Honestly, I feel pretty relieved to have written this. Writing is something that has helped me a lot in the past and and I am a lot better in it than talking, so maybe I should consider keeping some sort of (private) diary. A place where I can sort my mind and clean my head. I am not a big threadsaver guy but I promise there will be some soon as a tribute to all the tl;dr soldiers out there.

1/ Thank You
2/ Good luck
3/ Vamos

gl

Hi there kind sir,

I read your thread and found some similarities.

I will be turning thirty in May and i plan to quit my day job too this summer to go after my dreams.

I have also made a thread in here almost a year ago (May 2017).

I personally do not suffer from depression, but i think i can understand some of the things u describe.
I get it, because its VERY similar to the things that my best friend describes to me. He has some serious sleep problems and find "peace" in watching youtube/netflix stuff. He suffers from depression and i am trying really hard to help him the best way i can.

Poker - wise i play mtts like you, so i am so iiiiiiiiiin for this thread!

Subbed and best of luck to you amigo!

Stay strong! Fists high! Lets go!

Interesting read. I can say I experienced very similar things, I felt miserable for a long time and then realized I needed time alone to "work on myself". I feel it's important to find things out for ourselves and it's hard do so when we're crowded by other people telling who we are or how things are. The current education system does a particular poor job of helping us grow as persons, imo.

People make fun of AI, but when I look at it closely we live just as robots. If we experience some reward we want to do those things more, if we experience a bad situation we are afraid and want to avoid it in the future. This way, we get programmed by past experiences, we are not really in charge, we're in autopilot and we don't realize it.

We are constantly being pushed around in some direction, never with freedom to do what we really need to do. This is the reason I decided to seek freedom in something that would enable be to be more alone. I couldn't find a better option than poker. It's challenging but challenges can also be good because they can be used to keep us sharp and learn about ourselves.

I feel like many people experience similar things, some may not realize it because they have other things in life that hide it, but the unhappiness is still there.
Kudos to you for sharing this and good luck with your challenge.

So your life is going pretty well but you struggle with depression, and you think quitting your steady job of 6 months to play poker for a living is going to make things better?

You're taking a huge risk here man, huge. You're putting all the good things in your life at risk, including your mental health.

Get some professional help with the depression before you take a big leap like this. Then start small. Make poker a hobby and try to get really good at it in the time you have available without putting everything at risk.

Good luck.

Hi Guys,

pretty sick that you read all the way through, thanks! I also appreciate your comments and it's no more than logical that there is some serious questions about the decision that I made for myself.

@wlpb: I also ask myself questions about the current 'system' but I don't think it's really an obligation to follow it. The problem is that from a very young age we are learnt that it's basically our only option. The degree in which we participate to the system is a choice we eventually make for ourselves, a lot of young kids have the balls to step outside the system. Others need a bit more time. I have a lot of my friends who fit perfectly in this picture of school-job and are really happy and they are not 'unhappy products of society'. But indeed there are lots of people who do their best to fit in and fail.

@Darth_Maul: I don't think that quitting my job will cure my depression. Poker will not solve all that's bad. If that were my logic, then I would 100% agree with what you are saying, being that I should not do it.
The issue I have is more about 'the big picture'. I did (and do) ask for professional help. Talking to a psychologist is something that I really suggest and a good psychologist can do wonders just by asking the correct questions + the fact that the person is an unknown is also somewhat liberating. Also, I have to add that at the moment I am not in a depressed state (just to clear that up). I would not make this choice without consideration. This is not an impulsive decision.
The thing is: when the doctor prescribed my medication he looks to me in the eye and says: 'theres no shame in this, a lot of people need it. Take it for two months and if needed we will give you a longer prescription'. That got me thinking. How many people are on these meds? What if I stop taking them?
I basically thought if I get my life on track, I wouldn't need them. Because as long as I do the things that are correct things will be good, right?
Well, turns out that they are not. And guess what: who says they will when I play poker? Nobody, we just don't know.

What if I would have gone 100% on poker right after graduating? If I failed I would have been in a similar situation as the one I'm in right now + maybe a few people left & right making fun of me, which is far from a disaster. So is the risk really this big? As I said in the original post:
- worst case scenario is that I'm a few K lighter and have a similar job as the one I'm doing at the moment. In all my hobbies and previous jobs I was highly appreciated as a team player and I'm pretty sure I can find a job pretty quickly using the references I have right now.
- best case scenario is that I run decent early on, invest in myself with coaching and play poker for a few years while creating the life that I want. Perfect situation would be to never have to work for another company again and start my own business when I'm ready for it.

I think it's worth the investment.

Think playing poker for a living if you struggle with depression in a conventional job is very risky for most people. Personally I would make sure I felt positive about my life situation and was making at least 2x my salary from poker over a minimum of 6 months before considering going full time.

Either way good luck with your goals and pursuing whatever route you choose to take.


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