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Your Life Is One Long Card Game. Here’s How to Play to Win.
Spoiler: It’s not about the cards you’re dealt.
This is an article about perhaps what is my favorite analogy of all time: life and a game of cards.
You’ve probably heard me use this one a lot lately, but it really helps people understand how life works.
If you’ve played just about any card game, chances are, you don’t get to pick the cards you get. They’re dealt to you at random.
Whether you get a good hand, a bad hand, or anything in between, that’s what you’re stuck with, and you can’t change it from the get-go.
Complaining about your hand doesn’t do anything for you. Getting upset with the other players for having better hands doesn’t make yours better. You could blame the game, but it doesn’t change anything.
While you don’t have a choice in the cards you get from the beginning, however, what IS and always will be in your control, is HOW you play your hand.
Do I play this card on turn one? Do I keep it for later? Do I get rid of this bad card, or this other one? Lots of options to choose from.
A card game is a great analogy for life.
You don’t choose which parents you’re born into. What kind of income they have. What school you go to in the beginning. What kind of lifestyle you pick up from your parents. The kind of kids you’re put with at school.
But as you progress through life and become more autonomous, more of your life unlocks and becomes under your control. You choose your classes. You can limit your social group and pick your friends. You can get a job to climb out of a bad spot. You can change your attitude about how you see things.
It’s not about how you start; it’s about how you finish. And certainly, some people get the better hand at the beginning, but it’s no guarantee that things will stay the same for them all their lives.
Don’t be focused on what cards other people have. Focus on what you can be doing to improve your own game.
(This is a post I initially created and wrote on my Instagram page, and I’ve repurposed it for Medium.)
