It's 2008!

It always takes a little while for the new year to sink in. Maybe it's the tax-filing process that finally brings it home to me. Or the slow changing of the seasons (why is Jan 1st a new year anyway? it's so arbitrary... we should change the year on a solstice or equinox...). But yeah, it finally seems like a new year. Yea?

I was reading an article Find your Inner Spock and, even though it was a fluff piece, I connected with it.

To hear Finkel tell it, there is only one golden rule to making decisions: a rigorous faith in logic.

"On a deep psychological level you have to know that you can make the right decision 10 times in a row and have it not work out and make the same decision the 11th time," Finkel said. "A lot of people understand that intellectually, but don't have it hard-wired into their systems. You have to have this very deep-seated belief in probability and not looking at results."

It's definitely not an easy thing to do. Once you get kicked in the teeth a couple times, it's hard to smile. There are days when I feel like the whole universe is against me, days when self-doubt handicaps my decisions.

When I first started playing poker, I was naive. Now though, I don't think that I would ever recommend to anyone that they start playing professionally. It's too stressful and emotionally draining. Separating your results from your feelings of self-worth is too difficult.

I'm not saying that I would do things differently. It's not like I want a *job*! It's just that poker has turned into a more challenging job than any field to which the road well traveled would have led.