Sudden Realization

[Bill King]

So here's the story.. I've been playing poker for around 4 years, but basically 2 years seriously.. and about 1.5 years professionally. I am a regular poster on here, and when I first started reading 2p2 it only fueled my fire to become a better player. Since then I have worked my way up to the biggest games in the area, and have developed my game to the point where I feel I can beat any game.

Around 4 months ago I read a post (i think it was by AZK??) in the HSNL forums about losing motivation to play.. and every word he expressed pretty much clicked in my head. About a week later I was playing in the 75/150 Mixed game (HOE but mostly OE), and I had a HUGE weekend playing.. running well.. playing even better. Everything has been clicking for me both intellectually with poker and with results as an effect of this. Not only that, but my poker friends (some from here, and others from live play etc.) are all doing very well and it makes me happy to see them prosper. I was at the table and I just said to myself "what am I doing here? I feel like I am wasting the good years of my life." I picked up my racks of chips, and left, and haven't been back since. I left with the intention to not return there unless things in my life had gone seriously awry and I needed some emergency money.

Since this time, I have invested most of my BR, paid off about $50k or so in school loans (making me debt free), and I am looking into buying a nice car this summer. Life is good.. or so it would seem.

I am having issues right now, finding a way to expend the mental energy that I put into poker. I feel that there was so much put into playing, analyzing and developing my game.. that now I sit around and am bored with myself. I can't find motivation to do schoolwork, and I have just sort of stopped caring about the little things that used to make me so happy.. like running (I used to run 10 miles every day).

Is this me saying I regret the choice to basically start the process of weeding poker out of my life? I'm not really sure.. but the game for a while was making me generally unhappy.. regardless that I was making ~$300/hr and I don't even have a college degree yet.

I'm not really sure what to do here. I took a long break from poker, and I am at the point now where I am debating on just starting over. If I start with a small amount of money, and grind it back up into the bigger games again, maybe that challenge will make me more motivated and channell my efforts.

comments would be greatly appreciated.