oh my

Now I feel my body, my mind, my girlfriend, her family, and just the world in general is telling me to stop chasing money so much. It’s good to have a job that pays you so well, but at what point is it an addiction? Just because you don’t take a drug doesn’t mean you aren’t an addict. I know many people who are ruining themselves because they are addicted to their work.

You can’t tell yourself you are going to start your life when you lose five pounds, when you get that one girl, or when you make X amount of money. I’ve made X amount and expected it to complete me.

I’m not taking advantage of what I’ve learned: It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve made if you have nothing else going on in your life. You’ve essentially just gone to a higher blind level in a life tournament with yourself – a life tournament with no real first prize because you can’t even recognize a mountain top.

and whenever he tried to shout out his stake and position, it seemed that the eyes of all those sitting or standing at the table were turned towards him and that they all believed he was gambling for the money, out of necessity, and so he always tried to announce his bet as clearly and carelessly as possible, but always managed to sound either too pleading or too defiant, so that people must still be thinking that some extremely special, pressing reasons were compelling him to gamble - and now all this was behind him - and he went on to win, and on the seven as well - double luck and a good omen - and, having won three gold pieces, he now placed all six on impair - and won again thought on the nine this time - he must switch to manque as passe had already come up three times in a row - and he staked five of the nine gold coins he had won - he was winning time after time - on passe, manque, rouge, noir, and even twice on zero - the coins were piling up before him - and someone obligingly placed a chair behind him, but he did not sit down in case he altered the tempo of his game and, in any case, he was probably quite unaware of the chair and what he was supposed to do with it - and everything around him spun in a kind of mad vortex - nothing was visible except the piles of coins before him and the tiny ball, rolling round and finishing in the sector he had divine - and he was betting over and over again, raking in with his hands the coins he had won and adding them to the pile which shone with a reddish-gold gleam - and the peak of the mountain had suddenly emerged from the clouds, which remained somewhere below - he was now so high he could not even see the earth - all was covered with white cloud, and he strode across the cloud and, strangely, it supported him and even lifted him up towards the reddish-gold, unconquered peak which until quite recently had seemed unattainable.

Gambling encourages bad decision-making and an undesirable outlook on life. You might be surprised to see a professional poker player saying that he opposes legalized gambling, but really I see a world of difference between poker, a skill-based and potentially +EV game, and slot machines, lotteries, etc. which are beatable only by cheating and generally a terrible decision for anyone to play. Poker at least has the potential to teach good financial decision-making. Its governing philosophy is that, as in life, your outcomes are in part a result of your decisions and in part a result of luck. Table games generally and slot machines in particular operate on a “roll the dice and see what happens” mentality, not the way a government ought to encourage its citizens to live and act.

Love all of God’s creation, both the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love animals, love plants, love each thing. If you love each thing, you will perceive the mystery of God in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin tirelessly to perceive more and more of it every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an entire, universal love.