The age old question of why the world is unfair why theres injustice in the world ya know elliot rodger type of vibes


Right so ive just been focusing all my thoughts and beliefs on the fact "that i have to watch other ppl who just randomly click buttons at the table or luckbox a huge tourney for a big score have success while they don't put in any work or it's undeserved and it's their destiny pretty much to win" and my belief is that they aren't entitled to it while i am running 50 BI's below EV and ive invested all this time and the universe says nah man it's your destiny to fail this just accept it...
(all the while the 50 BI below EV is more like a 25 BI below EV swing)

Also how do we measure who deserves what, i guess one way i've thought about it was before you are born the universe, god, christ or whomever flips a coin and 50% you end up in a 1st world country with oppurtunities and the other 50% of the time you end up in rural Asia or a random african village with no way out

Just trying to wrap my head around how "everything in life is a gift" and just trying to logic my way out of this statement is there something im missing do i need need to try a rainbow of psychedelics before my consciousness and sub consciousness mind realize something.

Should i just jump out of a plane with no chute to a 3rd world country and live in tibet for 7 years on a farm to get my perspective or brain wired to the point where i want to be or would drugs be better

Thanks.

This might sound bipolar of me & i apologize for the excessive thinking and rambling (i swear i wish i was ignorant to the point of being brain dead)

I just think that the places and environment you spend the most time in cause you to only compare yourself to those around you especially when you fail or are always at the bottom compared to the population in this place/environment.

A part of you looks past all the hardships people might be and are experiencing that you wouldn't dare to put your shoes in the world, since some part of my brain is telling me "logically" well i was dropped in here in this spot in this environment i didn't choose to be here so lets adapt to this and thus if you are in a good place you lack a sense of gratefulness in a way or maybe you are grateful but it's only temporary.

The real sad thing is i've always prided myself on being self-aware/logical and conscious about things yet i can't be aware enough to know i ran above EV before i was born etc. and that's ignorance right there isnt it

It's a trip, life is, and all pursuits within it ... .... good and bad, sometimes very good or very bad. A good takeaway is "this is my life right now, and all things in life are a teacher, especially the bad/hard/painful things." Something i was reading today applies: "The Kybalion." It emphasizes this big picture versus little picture thing. The little picture is you are experiencing losing, bad luck, adversity in poker. The big picture is, "this is my life, affliction is a teacher, a better teacher than easy sailing, life is not about poker, etc." Easier said than done but by the time you've been doing it for 40 years, you'll be saying, "Ah so. I was escaping the key things in life via poker. In a way it's good if that doesn't work." Life, The Kybalion seems to say, is about toggling back and forth between these two perspectives, big picture little picture, immediate and spiritual, quotidian and full journey. This only helps way down the road. Right now, a losing streak is a losing streak. Within the limited system, that's bad, negative, painful, frustrating as hell, and importantly so. Within the big picture, it is close to zero out of a hundred in terms of salience. If I hadn't read that today you wouldn't have had to hear this. I love the title of the thread. Entitlement is a cancer; gratitude is a spiritual thing. I once posed those very two as dead opposites in a philosophy class and got some love from the professor. I very much had entitlement in gambling. It's not coming from a good place. Sometimes you can't get out of these streaks. The streak is the streak is the streak. It becomes like a medicine more than a curse, administered by a wise and powerful force called Jungian teleology, of one is so inclined to play that game of life as assiduously as the game of cards.

lol there's too ways to live your life.

1) Have all you want.
2) Want all you have.

I live now by number 2. You always are content.

Lose a MTT? Play another if you got the money. Got no money? look for a way to make the money the pay for the entry.

If I lose chips in a mtt lose when im a 80% favourite that is what I have. I love it.
If I win I love it.

Gratiude? Everything I'm grateful for. That's what I have.

Thanks for your post, and i do believe that poker has a greater purpose in the grand scheme of things, just need to work on being conscious of my thoughts and emotions whenever a beat happens and overcome/defeat the urge to have those overwhelming thoughts on the other side of the spectrum.

This sounds like a dumb idea but ill try and log every session and give myself 3 opportunities in the session to be aware and overcome... if i can't i walk away and call it a win. No matter even if i've only been playing for 5 minutes, and each session i don't tilt/let my mind focus on all the negative **** thats happened in the past/have gratitude etc. ill mark the session as a success even though the perfectionist in me wants to only mark it as a success if i don't choke/panic in spots or if i knew the strat and took all the most profitable lines/decisions
^obv the downside is it's going to be hard to churn out hours especially if i walk away from a good game (which always happens) any advice here?

...but again the focus is on perspective/my thoughts and forgiving myself even if i dont want to, i need to embrace this adversity also because i know itll translate to my life outside off the felt,
poker has a purpose more then exploiting ppl/strats and winning money ill follow that belief until i die i just know it and maybe ill find salvation or break the cycle of samsara by playing poker who knows (im kidding?)

"Also how do we measure who deserves what"

i think its just the wrong stuff to be thinking about.

u only have so many thoughts in a day, i wouldnt think too much about this thought

Um, that's not a very effective way of looking at it.

All it comes down to is what is actually important to you. Basic knowledge aside (and it's impossible to win consistently without that knowledge), you need to have a clear notion of how others are playing. That's not gonna happen if you're wrapped up in yourself. You have to actually be more interested in what others are doing, and why.

It really is both that simple and that hard. However, the desire isn't enough, you have to have the will and put in the work.

You play 1/2 live pal i dont think your entitled to give me advice on how to play poker lol (and im not even sure you know how poker works) also you totally missed the point i was mainly talking about self foregiveness and gratitude

Idk why but "acutal" stupid ppl get the best of me too in life and that's something that i struggle with it's so hard to ignore but ignorance is bliss even if you don't choose ignorance ya know (no duh)

I feel like a total ******* writing that post, and you know what ignorant dumb people can't help themselves i feel sorry (and should feel sorry) sometimes but anger and annoyance always comes first, it ****ing boggles my mind how little self control i have which causes me to act like a monkey on crack and how much i like to force **** the hard way (short term/in the moment) instead of taking the more patient route with stuff like i should be doing

Your right.

The problem im having with gratefulness is truly feeling it, and maybe it's something that takes time to truly feel that you are grateful and blessed. If i was able to wire my thoughts and brain to tell myself how much i failed over the past few years then i think it's possible to do the former.

I feel like my connection to the word grateful or gratefulness is lost. I can try to meditate on being grateful or focus on a specific thing... but the end goal is to realize gratefulness in the moment and be more aware of "gifts" or things that happen on a day to day basis to train that awareness of gratefulness whenever my brain decides to go on auto-pilot/hibernation mode.

It seems to me that entitlement and gratitude are 2 sides of the same useless coin. The general theme is attaching emotion to your current state of affairs. Sure one is a positive emotion and one is a negative emotion but why even bother in the first place? Imo it’s better to just accept reality rather than pass a judgement about it. There’s a parallel to result based thinking here, but just do what u think will maximize the probability of u getting to where u wanna be and then whatever happens happens. The rest is just a bunch of hot air.

OK, up to you and maybe you're right. I just don't see a place in winning poker for self-forgiveness. Plays work, or they don't and there is always something to be learned (could have won more, or lost less).

Also, when I see a luckbox raking in huge pots through bad play, I see opportunity and feel a little greed at the possibilities. Envy doesn't even cross my mind. I used to feel things like you described, until I actually learned how to play poker. After understanding that they're just pulling a slot machine lever, I know that sooner, or later they're going to lose it - and I want to be the one they lose it to.

FWIW, I play a deep stack 1/3 game ($500/table max) that plays a lot like a 2/5. Today's three biggest stacks were well over $1,000.00. I also average about 15 BB/hour, so yea there is room for improvement.

stoicism helps in poker but to a point, i think i've crossed that threshold into defeatism unfortunately due to things outside of poker effecting me and also on the felt.

my brain isn't wired like that to just "accept" reality honestly i don't even feel like a real man anymore because part of life is also just taking responsibility for your actions too

just trying to logic my way out of whatever it is im going through rn because there is a way i just havent found the right thoughts/beliefs/ideas to put together correctly

People are not naturally logical, we are emotional by nature and have needs that transcend both logic and emotion (food, shelter, purpose, etc). So, whatever the issue is that is making you unhappy, logic ain't gonna fix it.

Um, not 15, it's 8. I went back through the spreadsheet. Oops.

https://fourminutebooks.com/lost-connections-summary/

are these pretty close to the truth? they look good to me

the negreanu principle for playing like god
"play good hands well"
just watch his videos

hellmuth exploitation attempt
play bad hands badly for image

the problems and difficulties of hellmuths technique are several
the only way to get value out of playing a bad hand badly is
all the way to that distant and costly river so ...

are poker players smarter than psychologists? yes
are poker players smarter than math professors? the best ones yes
do poker players have personal favorite bad hands to play badly? doyle brunson made 10 2 famous
do poker players know how often to go all the way with a bad hand? no
should they try it once only when they sit down? yes
should they begin the hellmuth technique on the button frequently? yes
how about small blind? try never
under the gun? once in a while but yet to be calculated
jdp

the hellmuth: playing bad hands badly all the way
never in the small blind
once under the gun
twice times in next position
et cetera count by +1
frequently on the button

sound good? in principle? maybe

i mean to say that
for some reasoning
hellmuth the great
is widely considered to be
a bad best poker player in the world
jdp

Try a therapy?

To the OP, I find it helpful to consciously focus on all the little things I'm grateful for during my day... A hot shower, eating a piece of fruit, whatever you feel blessed for, just make sure to think about how grateful you are as you're experiencing it.

Mindfulness meditation can help too. I used to spend anywhere from a couple to 30 min a day just focusing on my breathing. The idea is to find a focal point to focus on to break the chain of consciousness, so that eventually you can just exist in the moment without the mental baggage... That's the jist of it, but you can search for techniques if you're interested. Guided meditations can be good too.

Our brain can reprogram itself. Instead of inputting main stream media designed to make us feel lacking to spend money, try seeking out inspirational people online and looking for positive techniques to increase well being.

Gratitude is surprisingly effective at helping with downswings. The first few weeks of January were fairly unlucky for me, but I was in Mexico for the entire month playing online poker. A girl I met down there mentioned that she uses gratitude and affirmations for her work in a sales job.

It sounds new-agey, but I'd leave a coffee shop thinking about how "bad" it was that I'm only making like $20/hr for the month instead of my "true" hourly. Then, I'd look around at the people at food stands with everyone above 12 working long hours to help the family get by. I'd walk along the pier on a gorgeous warm evening as the waves crash toward the shore, while everyone back home is sitting in -30 winter. Suddenly I felt very lucky, and very grateful to have things be the way they were.

It was probably within a day or 2 that I started sunrunning. Coincidence? Most likely, but these coincidences do seem to happen once my focus goes from focusing on variance to just focusing on playing better.

In that way I do have to agree with Mason (re: playing better helping with tilt).

Wow that's the whole theory of alienation/spirituality that I espouse. Alienation/disconnection from self, others, life, experience, purpose ... is an emptying and depleting thing to the human spirit. And connection is vitalizing and energizing.