You often cannot impact the cards you are dealt in life but you can choose how you play those cards. Having that knowledge and then focusing on what you can control is key to hope and progress.
And since you can’t change the cards you are dealt, you’d be surprised at the number of options you do have:
- Choose to play another game (poker to bridge or blackjack, or even switch from cards to chess or checkers).
- Bluff!
- Consult with other players and agree to amend the rules. (Why not? They aren’t the Ten Commandments. People made ’em, people can change ’em.)
- Change the dealer.
- Refuse to play, either via a temporary sabbatical or permanently.
- Study the game, memorize the odds, learn to read the tells of the other players.
“Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out.” It is a simple saying but a powerful one.
I collect pithy sayings because the best represent an enormous amount of distilled human wisdom. To me, each one is a reminder of an immense body of experience and knowledge. When I think of a wise saying that is relevant to a challenge I face or situation I’m in, it triggers that entire storehouse of related knowledge and understanding.
And I repeat my favorite truisms often because I believe that immersion and repetition are great teachers, fantastic ways to drive knowledge home on a cellular level, down deep where it becomes habit, freeing my consciousness to focus on the next lesson to be explored and assimilated.
“Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out.”
I value that truism because it reminds me I always have choices, I always have some measure of control. That knowledge alone restores calm, creates confidence, and empowers control.