[prayformojo]

I went the professional route. It nearly killed me.

I've been playing poker for almost a year and it's been grand. The game itself has been fine, I'm improving, I'm earning well, blah blah blah who cares. I didn't leave my job and walk away from 8 years of education for the money or the work. This summer I took almost three months off to be with my wife and daughter. I ditch the tables on a nice afternoon to stroll down to my favourite coffee place for an hour. On Tuesday we had linguini with lobster in cream sauce, paired with a fantastic Italian sparkler (not as balla as it seems, btw: lots of fishermen connections for free lobster). In a month we're going on a cruise.

Through all these times, I never once frantically pawed through my memory trying to figure out what I might have forgotten to do. I never wonder which client is going to come down with an emergency that needs me now now now. I don't want to puke every time the phone rings.

I used to be surrounded by people, with very few exceptions, who were unhappy in their jobs and their lives. Not any more. I may not be able to play poker forever for the kind of money I make now, but accepting life as it is today was one of the best decisions I made. Oh, and investing the bulk of my income for the future lets me sleep at night.

Make your choice based on the life you want, pure and simple. Yes, considerations for the future, and for the viability of a poker income, should have a lot of sway. However, anyone who enters a career he knows he's going to hate, solely for the benefits that that job is going to bring him sometime years from now, is fooling himself.