Full Houses

One piece of advice I keep hearing from various quarters, but especially and particularly from my sister K., is that I am always trying to hard, and thinking, analysing and worrying too much. Relax, she says, keep doing the things you like to do, focus on things you can control and the things you do well, and things will fall into place. Her favourite way of illustrating this phenomenon is a phrase she picked up from her husband while playing poker: "Full houses just happen". Stay in the game and eventually you are going to be dealt a winning hand.

It follows from this that one should avoid worrying about the poor hands one gets along the way. It is easy to get distracted, to lose perspective and dedicate an inordinate amount of time and energy to causes which demonstrably do not merit the effort. One must recognise the futility in such a course and also the dangers of becoming thus sidetracked: the time it consumes takes one away from the table and out of the game for longer than it is worth. And the resultant frustration from the inevitable failure saps ones confidence precisely when it is most needed, as it is the essential ingredient to success.

This approach dovetails with another ubiquitous nugget of wisdom: the path to happiness and the solution to loneliness lie within oneself and cannot, no matter what, be achieved through others. Stated another way: you cannot love another until you truly love yourself.
Solution? Work on yourself, make yourself the best person you can be, and your ship (i.e. full house) will come in.