When most children grow up, their parents tell them that life is like chess; you follow a strategy to win.
But life is more like poker.
You never know what cards you’ll be dealt, if your competitor is a master, or what cards other hold.
And few people hold the same set of cards.
Everyone doesn’t have a queen, knight, and a rook. Some people have single-parent incomes or parents addicted to heroin.
Some people lose their parents in high school and live the rest of their life without someone with experience who can teach them to care for a vehicle or to file taxes.
Life is far from fair.
No matter your perfect strategy of where you’ll work, who you’ll marry, and the color of your house, it’ll all change when you pick up a new hand of cards that you never saw on the chess board.
That’s because life isn’t set with pieces in a linear way. You can’t foresee your opponent’s hand, a job loss, or a divorce.
But this doesn’t mean you have to stay out of the game completely.
You take risks every day. Choosing to walk or drive to work could be a life or death decision.
We must take calculated risks, knowing the best and worst outcomes.
You could die in a car wreck (1 in 5,000 chance of getting in a car wreck) or a plane crash (1 in 11 million).
Life means that you have to cherish every moment before it’s gone and to protect yourself from irrational decisions. You rarely know until players compare cards, whether you’ve won or lost.