[olliejen]

Wonderful post, KT.

I'm a year behind you, I have a few observations from around the same milestone marker as you are at (I'm 34) I wonder if you find any of them to be true to your life?

1. Everything worthwhile takes work/time; the trick is the picking and choosing stuff that's most worth your time and actually working on it. That actually applies as much to interpersonal relationships as it does to poker.

2. I'm more self-aware/able to compensate better than when I was younger. When I'm tired/cranky, I know I to hold my tongue a little more or try to be more patient. I don't have to win every argument anymore and I know better when to (and better able to) take a break to refocus at work or playing cards, etc.

3. Time & doing what you want to do with your time should be the goal, not $$$. BUT, oftentimes $$$ enables you to have time/do what you want to do with your time. If you look at who makes the most $$$ as a competition with someone else or as a way to prove something, I think most folks end up finding it to be a pretty hollow pursuit in of itself. In the end, you'll always be the only one holding the bag that is the result of the choices you make in your life. It may be filled with $$, but you may have lost out on a lot of other cool/great/neat experiences if money is all you ever focused on.

4. You don't have to eat as much as you think you do. In general I think we just eat too much these days. A couple years ago, I started a self-experiment where I just ate about half as much as I normally did and I ate when I wasn't hungry (I'm less picky about food when I'm not hungry) There was definitely an adjustment period, but now I basically eat half what I used to eat and it's plenty (and I eat way better) I'm overall much happier for a variety of reasons resulting from this continued experiment.