Life isn’t about the hand you’re dealt, it’s how you play it.
Most of us are familiar with one form or another of this idiom. That is, to accept, deal with and make the most of our circumstances, abilities and resources that we possess. The operative word here is hand.
It isn’t playing the “single” card you are dealt; it’s the entire hand of cards that it alludes to. So many focus and play the one card that they know best, that has served them for a lifetime, one they can’t let go. Think certain members of Congress, doctors, news/weather reporters, lawyers, hairstylists, investors, we all know someone still playing their solitary card well into their 80’s and even 90’s.
A few do possess those atypical circumstances that avail them to do this, most of us do not. This morphs into playing the cards you have not the ones you wish you did. Some of the most miserable people are those who continually chase life and their time with cards they do not hold.
I would be one of those miserable people if I had sought the first indication of what I might be good at because it doesn’t fit my personality. Remembering the greeting card I had designed that was highly rewarded, I was curious if I still had it in the box every parent keeps for their children of past accomplishments. There was no card, but there was the kindergarten graduation program with my design and name on it that I had completely forgotten.
The real gem, however, was the newspaper article I found from my senior year of high school spotlighting those graduating each week. In today’s world, the level of personal identifiable information could never be printed. Two things that I had publicly published stuck out. My likes, dislikes, favorites and overall personality hadn’t changed much in 30+ years other than having vastly more options. And my favorite quote was “it is not what you have that matters, it’s what you do with what you have.”
I couldn’t look up and credit who said this first because there was no internet. It did reinforce my memory with one of my other favorite quotes also attributed to Marcus Aurelius.
Thinking you have only one solitary card or path in life with the sometimes-overwhelming number of options now available, is restrictively narrow.
The same is true for investing. There isn’t one, single path available to build the funds you need.
You have an entire hand of cards to play throughout your lifetime. A few will have the opportunity to play the one outstanding card they possess, but the majority of us will need to explore (and fail) using our other abilities and resources to keep us from becoming that miserable person.
A well-played life is learning not to replay those cards that are gone or never meant to be.
On Playing the Hand You Are Dealt – Toward Significance