I'm in the dead middle of exam week at the moment. Things are going very well currently as I am getting everything that needs to be done....well....done.

I feel like I'm in kind of a weird funk where things I have been doing have been great, but something still feels like it's missing from my life. I'm not going to go too in depth here, but I still find myself longing for something that is just out of my reach. C'est la vie, I know it'll come soon enough.

I've been thinking about why it's seen as such a negative thing to be unhappy in our society. I know most people are not completely fulfilled out of life, but why does everyone have to act as if they are? To me it would make more sense to remain genuine in spite of "negative" emotions. I put negative in quotes because who's to say what's truly negative or positive? Such emotions are subjective. If you're happy, be happy, if you're not, then don't. Simple. This way you don't blind yourself to possible solutions in the midst of putting on a front. Seems like a pretty big waste of energy.

Speaking of energy, I've been thinking a lot about the power of productivity, momentum, and willpower. It's almost as if the willpower is what starts the productivity machine and momentum is what makes it so easy to keep a habit in place. (also why it's so difficult to stop a habit)

This also brings up the point of inertia. This goes hand-in-hand with momentum in the fact that a habit in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an exterior force. This means that if we let a force come in the way of our habit's path, then it is easier to be thrown off. (I'm not entirely sure what I mean here, but I think it has potential for a different blog.)

I'm gonna go study econ now.

I don't care who you are. Everyone has some sort of love for*themselves. *The very fact that a person is still alive and hasn't chosen to end life, that is all the evidence needed for proof of self-worth. *The key to a healthy amount of self-esteem, however, is giving your own life enough value to consider no other option besides living life and enjoying it. *This is where an existential perspective comes in handy. *All too often, people who have already psychologically passed through the illusory security blanket of religion will fall into a state of nihilism. *If we are honest with ourselves and unafraid to authentically look into the abyss of the potential meaninglessness of life then it is very easy to allow oneself to be overcome be a sense of powerlessness.


But if that person who unwaveringly looked into the darkness of his or her psyche, then one can only hope that they continued on through and made sure to keep going down the rabbit hole until they reach the end. *At some point along this path, the question of the meaning to life will be asked.


“Man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked."*
*-- Viktor Frankl


There is no exterior supreme being that gives meaning to and control's each person's life. *If there is a higher being somewhere, I would like to think the supremeness of it would also be located within the deepest recesses of each and every person's heart. * This point-of-view*annihilates*feelings of helplessness and instead instills a sense of power through responsibility within the individual.

It is your ultimate responsibility to define the meaning to your life. *Whether that be through loving someone else, a career, children, sports, poetry, art, music, inventing things....doesn't matter. *What matters is the fact that you recognize that you have a job to do while on this earth. *Through losing yourself in this job, you transcend yourself and all your petty problems. *An*artist*may be depressed for 95% of his life, but when he has lost himself in the performing of his art, that experience is what makes his entire life worth living to him. *With self-transcendence also comes a healthy mind psychologically. *


Can we construct our lives in the same manner with which an artist would construct his work of art?


Back to self-worth. *Everyone has a baseline of self-worth/esteem/love. *These obviously will vary to different degrees*depending upon life circumstances, but it is important to*remember*that there should always be a minimum amount of self-respect.
x

Received this email just 3 hours ago. Anyone else get one?

Dear **********,

As a player on Full Tilt Poker, you may be aware of the recent settlement reached with the U.S. Department of Justice (the "DOJ").

Full Tilt Poker will not offer real money online poker in the U.S. until it is permissible to do so under relevant law.

In relation to your account balance, you will have the opportunity to file petition with the DOJ through a remission process which will be administrated by the DOJ.

In light of the above, only play chip games will be available to Full Tilt Poker players in the U.S. following re-launch, in the first week of November, 2012. Your Full Tilt Points balance will remain intact in your account.

Please note that we are unable to answer queries in relation to your funds - all such questions should be directed to the DOJ in accordance with the procedure to be defined by them.

Please retain this email for your records.

Sincerely,

Full Tilt Poker

What's up guys?!

Long-time leggo member here back in the blogging action.

I hope these ramblings aren't too incoherent.

Needless to say...I miss everyone and everything about this game. I miss the camaraderie of meeting people via messenger and creating some awesome friendships rooted in a sense of common humanity of like-minded people just trying to make the most out of their skills and current situations (aka 20 and 30 somethings either grinding through college or just grinding out a lifestyle.)

I miss the lessons about myself and life I have learned through the ups and downs of the grind. I miss the travels and freedom poker has granted me. I miss the meaning and competition I have found through poker. I miss the never-ending pursuit of self-actualization.

I have lost poker (and myself) for awhile. Man, this sucks. I really just want to travel the world, meeting people and bettering myself and the people around me. BUT I feel trapped in the game of stagnating trivial pursuit that is college. "I only have 3 semesters left"....I continually remind myself each day I trudge to school to see the same old people every single day. These are great people, but I just feel trapped in a society in which I can't fully express whatever gifts I may have to offer this world. Boredom is impotency, neurosis, and death.

I take full responsibility for my life situation. I am a 22 year old American who should pursue a collegiate career. But I feel trapped, out of breath, tired. I feel my only escape would be into the utter chaos of the unknown. I feel trapped between two philosophies of life....living for the present vs. living for the future.....but how do I come into contact with that insight which so far has eluded me? I have pulled the trigger and jumped into the unknown before (with a safety net of poker and and abundance of money). But why do I now delude myself into the contemptuous contentment of deep self-sacrifice? I am willing to pay the cost of admission into the world of abundance and vitality (physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually)......but how does one truly know what is worth sacrificing for and what is merely an illusion?

This is a cry for wisdom. I do not want your help or pity or even your empathy. I want to learn from your life experience. What is a college degree even worth anymore if it requires one to sell his soul for a period of 4 years or more? When the fuck are we getting our FTP money?!

I am afraid.

I am finally starting to feel the fear of going to Asia by myself for four months. I am starting to second guess every single decision I have made from backpack size, to one-way vs. round-trip ticket, to whether or not I should bring a laptop with me so I can play poker. In a way, all of these things correlate around my central fear of the unknown. I want to play poker over there because I am afraid of what might happen if I have no way of making an income for 1/3 of the year. What if I am passing up some of the juiciest games all year? What if when I get back all the games are all dried up? What if I never make another dollar at poker ever again? All of these questions I have been stressing about are rooted in a scarcity mentality, rather than one of abundance. The whole point of me even making this trip is to learn how to trust myself in the extraordinary circumstances. But for some reason, right now I am not trusting myself that I will figure out a way to support myself financially. I have always taken pride in the knowledge that experience is worth more than any amount of money. But just recently I have been subconsciously questioning that belief, resulting in my subsequent anxiety. Essentially I am worrying about my lacking or deteriorating skills as a poker player in general.

Ok I am done rambling now...

What I really came here to say was that time is the only commodity of any sort of value. Money can always be accumulated at any point in one's life. But time is always being spent no matter how well you budget it. Thus, we must learn to live fully every single moment of our lives and not waste one second wrestling with the anxiety of loss.

As for the backpack and laptop dilemmas, I have decided to only bring a small backpack and an ipod touch. I will not allow myself to bury my nose into a laptop for hours at a time playing poker in a tropical paradise. Making money is not what I am taking this trip for. This trip is about spending my limited amount of time on this earth facing my fears and expanding my horizons endlessly. Gone are the days of accumulating worthless currency. I want the currency of the gods, I want the present moment.

One love

Fucking freedom....finally!!!


Well school is out. Got my associate in arts degree (value<2ply toilet paper imo lolz) So yeah, what to do now? How about THAILAND?! Ya rly. Ship the 4 months backpacking across SE Asia. Jan 19th-May 18th. The plan is to fly into BKK, then to the Chiang Mai>Hannoi>Ho Chi Min>Cambodia>Phuket>Malaysia>Singapore>Indonesia>Phillipines>then home from BKK!!!11!

Think I can do all that in 4 months? I've never really been out of North America before, let alone backpacking! should be fun

I'm only bringing a 35-liter backpack cuz I wanna keep it light so I can carryon/hold it on the crzy azn buses.

Poker has been fun when I play actually play it. Life is always more fun though. Been playing exclusively HU4ROLLZ. Fuck paying taxes imo, just leave the country haha.

My number 1 dilemma has been deciding on whether I should buy an itouch 4th generation or a nice netbook. I want the itouch to be able to view maps quick and do quick currency/metric conversions and could also use it as a small computer for email and blogging obv. But I don't know if I want to play poker on the road or not. My main reason for even going is to experience a new culture and I don't know if I want to be burying my nose in my computer for hours at a time during such a great experience. OTOH, I don't really want to spend 1/3 of a year with no way of making any income. My plan for now is to just buy an itouch in the USA and possibly just buy a netbook in Asia if I get the itch for teh pokerz. For you globe trotters out there, how much time do you really spend playing pokah on the road? Any comments on this one? How is the wifi out there?

O ya, I know a lot of you leggoers go to thailand, so if anyone wants to meet up at any point out there feel free to hit me up

One love

Hi

Long time no see playas

Been out of the poker scene for a few months traveling and shit. Went to Cali this summer and was homeless on the West coast for a while. Let's just say Santa Barbara is the best city I have ever been to in my short experience traveling. Bad part was I never had time to play poker. meh still made enough to pay the bills this year anyway.

I am back on the grind now. playing a solid one day every week! (Sunday lol) winrate>volume obv.

I feel I owe something to the poker community. I wanna give back in some way and I think that way is FREE COACHING. I will sweat a few micro and small stakes guys for free. I wouldn't feel right about charging money because I'm just not that good tbh. Anyone interested can PM me and we will set something up.

Just a lil update, that's all for now

Welcome back into my life Leggo!

Sup ya'll, gotta few minutes to kill in between classes so I figured I might as well post an itty bitty update. I tried to do a VLOG yesterday but couldn't figure out how upload the video to youtube without it being gay and taking forever/failing. So any tips from you vlogger pros would be much appreciated.

What have I been doing you ask?

1. changed my major to psychology
2. developed a new passion for nutrition/wellness (will elaborate later)
3. training insane
4. being rooted in the present moment

Summer is coming up fast and I really wanna travel to cool places this year. However, all of my IRL friends are broke asses so they can't afford to go all over with me . I am not sure when or where I will go so if any cool leggoers are in a similar situation then hit me the fuck up

BTW, all of my blog posts will probably be equally as ra-tarded as this one so deal with it

I have played like shit these past 2 days and have thus dropped like 4k at 400nl and 600nl. Its really not that big of a deal because its not even 10 buy ins but the way I lost a lot of it was just atrocious. I have lost 2 $2400 pots at 600nl, one was a bad misread of my opponent's turn c/r range and the other I wasn't paying good enough attention and shoved a QQ225 board on river with 55 while 200bbs deep!!! This is just unacceptable to me and I am going to cut down on my number of tables and just focus on playing well again and whatever happens, happens. I guess I just got too caught up in making enough money to pay off my truck and buy an apartment that I lost sight of what really matters in poker, playing A+ game at all times. I have already reviewed all my hands and now I'm just going to pretend like these last 2 days never happened and play more focused poker from now on!

On a side note, I never made it to the MMA class last week because I honestly just didnt have the time to. But I have since changed my mind and am going to drop in on a Muay Thai kickboxing class tonight at 7. Should be fun!


Peace, stay cool, do work guys!

I have been an MMA fan for a long time and I think its finally time I step to and get my ass beat up lol. I am going to join Ultimate Gym in Charlotte and take their MMA classes. Its only like $80/month and I think it will be a lot of fun! The only fighting experience I have is wrestling in Jr high/high school and I could def hold my own so I hope that translates well into the MMA style they teach.

The first week of school is over now and I am happy with it. I am talking to multiple hot girls in all my classes so hopefully I can seal the deal and bang a few of them soon. I have started working out 5 days/week for 45 min sessions and am making some great muscle mass gains. I can't wait to start the MMA training tomorrow night at 7! I'll let you guys know how it goes!