There have been countless songs, from Lady Gaga through to Kenny Rodgers, that lend themselves to the euphemism that life is like a game of poker. Full of bluffs, luck of the draw, gambling and some other poker related things…Anyway, the idea reins true and I thought about this last night as I fell asleep to an inner dialogue, which was admittedly just me singing Kenny Rodgers Gambler over and over, but who can blame me that song is incredibly catchy.

Poker was on my mind since I’d had a pretty epic day of it over the weekend, and I do mean epic, we had cigars, several bottles of whiskey, lots of money up for grabs and heaps of competitive egos. Needless to say, I won a round – because I’m just a regular gun if you know what I mean – but seriously, I did win a considerable amount of money which I was really counting on since I’d pretty much spent all of my money for the fortnight to the point that someone else had to buy me in on the table. Having said that I just realised how much that last sentence made me sound like some gambling addicted degenerate.

Moving on, there’s this idea that is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I’m pretty sure that it’s one that a lot of people toss around in their minds from time to time. That is, what impression do I really give people and what do they think about me or say when I walk away. I mean, it has to happen right? We’re all guilty of turning to a friend after someone walks off and saying “what the fuck was that guy all about…” and then elaborating on all the things that were weird, retarded, offensive and so on, about that person. I don’t like to admit it, it’s a horrible thing that people do but it sure does happen.

It seems to me that now days no one is safe from criticism, friends will happily air their thoughts on another friend the moment they’re out of ear shot without even a second thought. Anyone is good game and open for commentary, then again, maybe I just hang out with a bunch of douche bags. I don’t think I do though, they called my bluff ages ago and have stuck with me so that’s got to be good for something right?
So how does this all relate? I’m not entirely sure, I wanted to elaborate on the idea that in life you’re dealt the cards you get, sometimes you have a lucky break and the rest of the time you’re bluffing your way through it hoping no one calls you on it or that you lose too much in the process. I feel as though we all do our best but at the end of the day we spend a lot of time bluffing in an attempt to fool some other person into some sort of brilliant impression of whom it is that we really are.

Anyway, my lunch break is over and I’ve got to run but I’m not entirely sure about the whole poker is like life euphemism, Kenny might have been onto something with the whole “you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em” thing but unfortunately with life, you can’t exactly count your chips and walk away from the table when you’re winning. So maybe life isn’t like a poker game at all, however, they do have at least one thing in common, they’re both pretty damn fun most of the time.