fail

Tilting

In poker, when a player becomes confused and frustrated, he will start to play a little too aggressively and affect the performance of his game. He can be refer to as being on tilt and the most common way to for someone to be in this state is by losing. I think tilting doesn't only happen in a poker game but also in our everyday life. Like how you can have a string of bad luck in a poker game, sometimes in life, things just doesn't seem to be going your way. And if you react to it negatively, you will tilt.

Once you see everything from the wrong perspective, you will end up sabotaging yourself without realizing it. This can happen to your work and relationships. It might seem like you are trying to solve the situation but in reality you are just making things worse.

The most important thing is to realize when you are tilted and then act accordingly. Experience will help and if all else fails, try to step out from the situation to get a better picture.

Realign your perspective and untilt yourself. Doing anything while being on tilt is not only dangerous to your wallet but also to your well-being.

The Great Timing Belt

One night, while I was waiting for the auto-gate to open so I can park into the porch, my car engine decided to go to bed before me. Later I found out it has something to do with the timing belt, but the first thing that came into my mind was, man it could have waited till I got my car into the porch. Then as I was heading back to my room, I realized how lucky I was to have it died right in front of the house instead of anywhere else. Being a rational and logical person, I do not believe in luck. Or rather, I do not wish to believe in luck if possible.

A rationalist will argue that I should have replaced the timing belt before it had a chance to breakdown. I agree that I could have prevented the manifestation of bad luck from having my car breakdown in the middle of nowhere. But what about those lucky moments you experience in life like having it break down right in front of your house?

Bad luck don't travel alone

The way to look at this logically would be to consider them coincidence. If something can go wrong randomly, it can sometimes get lucky too. My gripe is that a lot of people do not attribute their success to being lucky. The world is very complicated and so inter-connected that how can you be sure it was all you that made it happened?

So, yes I do believe luck plays a role in both successes and failures. My stand would be try to minimize the chances of bad luck from happening (e.g. changing your timing belt on time) and put yourself in a position that you can enjoy the benefits when the planets decide to align themselves for you but most importantly, never ever rely on it.

Little did I know how a timing belt can remind me of how lucky I am sometimes and how there are things that you simply can't do anything about. The Great Timing Belt indeed.

Choke and Clutch

Picture the final game between 2 top ranked badminton players. (or whatever sports you are familiar with) One of them is leading far ahead and seems to have the championship trophy within reach. All of a sudden, he start to lose his cool and begin missing shots that he been delivering perfectly all night. At the end of the game, he seems to be reduced to nothing more than an average player. In sports term, he choked. Choking is attributed to anxiety and failure to perform under pressure. There are however players that excel in high pressure situation and have the ability to turn things around. As you might have guessed, these are clutch players. Clutch refers to the superior play executed by the player under high pressure which dramatically effect the outcome of the game.

In a high pressure situation, do you clutch and rise to the occasion or do you choke and crumble into failure?