The Gambler
“Life, like poker, has an element of risk. It shouldn’t be avoided. It should be faced.” ~ Edward Norton
With the anniversary of my brother, Christian's passing, I’ve found myself listening to songs that remind me of him the past few days. Songs with good drum tracks, songs whose lyrics sum him up well, and songs that we would listen to and sing together, as kids. One such song, is one that we used to sing together at the top of our lungs on long rides together; to the cottage, or when stuck in Toronto traffic coming back from our Grandmother’s place. Song lyrics we would sing, without even realizing the wisdom behind them. Like, Kenny Rogers’ famous, “The Gambler”.
We sang that song together, over and over again, unknowingly learning some pretty important life lessons that we didn’t realize we were learning. Over and over again, we sang along; “You've got to know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. And know when to run. You never count your money. When you're sittin' at the table. There'll be time enough for countin'. When the dealin's done”.
A song talking about priorities, boundaries, gratitude, holding on, and about letting go. A song about knowing what, “to throw away”, and, “what to keep”, in our lives. About knowing when to work for something, and knowing when to throw in the towel and begin anew, with something better.
“Every gambler knows. That the secret to survivin'. Is knowin' what to throw away. And knowin' what to keep. 'Cause every hand's a winner. And every hand's a loser. And the best that you can hope for Is to die in your sleep"
I don’t know much about Poker. I haven’t played since I was a kid, because that was also a game that Christian and I would play together. But I do know that, like Poker, everyone gets ‘dealt a hand’ in life. We all have cards to play. And, once the cards are dealt, we have three choices. We can accept those cards, and take our chances trying to win with them, alone. We can trade in our cards for other ones, hoping that the new cards will change our hand and help us win the pot. Or, we can fold.
Not everyone will win their hand. Some will fold, but hopefully they will play another game; keep trying. Not everyone will win the pot. But, that doesn’t mean they need to fold, indefinitely. We need to know the game well enough to know when to ask for new cards. We need to know you’re opponent; even when it’s us, ourselves. And, we have to make the best of our cards, once we have them. Not everyone will have good cards; but hopefully, the can learn to play as though they do.
“If you’re gonna play the game boy, you’ve gotta learn to play it right."
Like Poker, life is all about how we play our cards. We can either suck it up and play the hand we’re dealt, or we can learn to play the game right, and keep trying for a better hand. We can either find gratitude and happiness in and with what we’ve got; what we’ve been dealt. Or, we can begin anew, with a new hand. And, if Poker’s not working for us, we can play a different game. Or, we can invent a new game of our own. But we need to play the game. And, not regret the ones we lost; regret only, the ones we didn’t play.