{"id":67819,"date":"2017-10-25T12:07:33","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T19:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=67819"},"modified":"2017-10-25T12:07:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T19:07:33","slug":"make-the-best-of-what-life-gives-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/25\/make-the-best-of-what-life-gives-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Make the Best of What Life Gives You"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_67789\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-67789\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"67789\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/24\/eternal-return-to-creative-everyday\/dc5ba85a-d4fe-44b7-a8ef-81c06c4d7333\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DC5BA85A-D4FE-44B7-A8EF-81C06C4D7333-scaled.jpeg?fit=3024%2C4032&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"3024,4032\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Trace of my grandfathers Chinese calligraphy\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Trace of my grandfathers Chinese calligraphy. Made with iPad Pro and Procreate app&lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DC5BA85A-D4FE-44B7-A8EF-81C06C4D7333-scaled.jpeg?fit=800%2C1067&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DC5BA85A-D4FE-44B7-A8EF-81C06C4D7333-scaled.jpeg?fit=1500%2C2000&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DC5BA85A-D4FE-44B7-A8EF-81C06C4D7333-800x1067.jpeg?resize=800%2C1067\" alt=\"Trace of my grandfathers Chinese calligraphy\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-67789\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DC5BA85A-D4FE-44B7-A8EF-81C06C4D7333-scaled.jpeg?resize=800%2C1067&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DC5BA85A-D4FE-44B7-A8EF-81C06C4D7333-scaled.jpeg?resize=768%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DC5BA85A-D4FE-44B7-A8EF-81C06C4D7333-scaled.jpeg?resize=1500%2C2000&amp;ssl=1 1500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DC5BA85A-D4FE-44B7-A8EF-81C06C4D7333.jpeg?w=2000&amp;ssl=1 2000w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DC5BA85A-D4FE-44B7-A8EF-81C06C4D7333.jpeg?w=3000&amp;ssl=1 3000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-67789\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Trace of my grandfathers Chinese calligraphy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>You were never asked to be born&#8211; but you&#8217;re alive. So, what are you going to do with your life?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2>1. Life as a game of Texas Hold&#8217;em<\/h2>\n<p>I see God like a Texas Holdem dealer. He deals some of us good hands (paired face cards), and some of us get the shitty hands (off-suit 2-5). But, success in life ain&#8217;t about what cards you get&#8211; it is about how well you play your hand.<\/p>\n<p>My friend Justin was the best poker player out of all of me and my friends. Why? He was able to out-bluff everybody. He had guts, panache, and confidence. Often we would fold our hands, even when we had him beat&#8211; because he knew how to play his hand.<\/p>\n<p>Life is the same. You can complain that the dealer keeps giving you bad hands. But&#8211; it ain&#8217;t about the cards, it is about how you play the cards you are given.<\/p>\n<h2>2. Exploit privilege<\/h2>\n<p>In Texas Holdem poker&#8211; sometimes &#8216;pocket rockets&#8217; (two aces) is actually the worst hand you can get. Why? You become over-confident, and assume you&#8217;re going to win. But sometimes you end up losing&#8211; because the other guy might have a full-house, and you only have trips.<\/p>\n<p>Or&#8211; sometimes you have pocket rockets, and you have <em>TOO MUCH<\/em> confidence. You don&#8217;t know how to best &#8216;milk&#8217; your opponents, because you don&#8217;t know how to play your strong hand. So perhaps this can also be a good analogy for life&#8211; if you are born into privilege, don&#8217;t squander your powerful position. Also, bring out the best out of your life&#8211; even if you are given a good hand.<\/p>\n<h2>3. Learn to love the pain<\/h2>\n<p>It is a waste of energy, time, and resources to complain. Rather than complain&#8211; it is better for us to feel the pain, and use that pain as a STIMULUS to ACHIEVE MORE, to HUSTLE HARDER, and take bigger risks, and more ACTION in our lives!<\/p>\n<h2>4. Profit from life!<\/h2>\n<p>Therefore as a general rule in life,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  <strong>Don&#8217;t complain &#8212; rather, figure out how you can best exploit any situation (good or bad) in life<\/strong>.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Life is short. Don&#8217;t sit, complain, and sit on the sidelines. Rather, learn how to profit from your own knowledge, wisdom, and  always stay hungry.<\/p>\n<p>BE STRONG,<br \/>\nERIC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You were never asked to be born&#8211; but you&#8217;re alive. So, what are you going to do with your life?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DC5BA85A-D4FE-44B7-A8EF-81C06C4D7333-scaled.jpeg?fit=3024%2C4032&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67820,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67819\/revisions\/67820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}