RutJumping: The act of making a large life change by way of changing profession, or place of work, or city/country of residence. Term coined by MD Wah
Over the course of my life I've jumped ruts a number of times. With the last major rut jump being that of jumping the ditch (aka the Tasman sea) and moved back to Auckland from Sydney in March 2013. At the same time moving from employed status to unemployed.
The options when looking at whether you should jump ruts seem to be:
1) staying in your rut and putting up with it
2) wall papering your rut to make it more enjoyable to live in. An
option I've been told about, if you have a mid-life crisis which is
causing you to be unhappy with your rut, is to use the "shiny red
convertible" wall-paper, or the optional "younger mistress" model of
wall-paper. (Both options have been put up for my consideration by a
friend who, - as an aside - settled on his 2012 new years resolution in June 2012. His resolution
for 2012 was to get a mistress. Mission Unaccomplished so far.)
3) popping your head up above your rut and checking out whether the
grass is greener in another rut, and deliberately looking at slum-ruts
to make yourself feel better about your own rut, and then choosing to
stay where you are.
4) Jumping out of your rut and starting anew - either in a new location or a new career or whatever
My main reason for jumping out of my Sydney rut was to have more time
with my (then) 15 and 17 year old sons... I had been missing them over the past
couple of years and not seeing nearly enough of them so took a
punt and jumped....
Within a month of jumping, in April 2013, my father passed away at the age of 84 years. He was good enough to include me in his will, along with my two siblings. At that point in time, buffered with the knowledge I had a modest inheritance coming my way within a year or so, I decided to have a crack at making wall papering my rut with poker my full-time pass time. I've kept an eye on the job market from time to time, and have applied for three jobs over the past 10 months or so. With a "Do Not Pass Go" result from each of my job applications, I've kept myself occupied with learning and playing poker. (Applying for three jobs in a ten month period is, upon reflection, a pretty slack effort. Must be enjoying the poker experience...)
My first experience with poker began in May 2012 at Pokerstars. Mainly as a recreational activity at
night after work. However the addictive
element to my personality has become attached to the buzz of the gamble, and I've been playing (and losing - sorry - I
mean investing in my poker education) pretty much ever since. I viewed
the $'s lost as being justified though as the cost for the poker
wallpaper was considerably less than that for the "shiny red
convertible" and "the younger mistress" brands...
While the period from May 2012 to March 2013 was associated with playing low-stakes poker tournaments after work, I never really put any time into any poker self-education or analysis. And during that period, the poker I was playing was a recreational pursuit, with the amount at risk in any given time-period being a small percentage of my take home income. And that was fine. I was paying to be entertained, with the hope of making a large cash at some point. Once I had some more time on my hands post March 2013, and started digging deeper into the reasons why I was a losing tournament poker on Pokerstars, I realized I needed to spend time on self-education and analysis.
In future posts I'll be reviewing some of the books I've read, videos I've watched, software tools I've tried out, and poker sites I've visited. Hopefully any reader will get something out of the reviews. The main benefit I'll get will be a deeper engagement with the material, and, if all goes to plan, the information will be more accessible when I need it most. I'll also experiment with google ad words and become an Amazon associate just in case there is a chance that some ads can supplement the drain on my wallet that being out of work and playing poker full-time has led to. If there is any benefit to any reader and you do end up clicking through to Amazon and buy stuff, or click on any google ads then thank you in advance.
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This is the 3rd blog I've put up. With the first site, I flirted with the idea of being a lazy poker player (based on some of the ideas in "The Lazy Project Manager". But realized that there is considerable work required to becoming a winning poker player (at least for me...). I've retired that blog site as I've not been able to tie the ideas in that book to my journey so far. The second blog site is still live and is at pokerstrategy.com. I'll leave that one live for now. The main reason for starting this site is that pokerstrategy's posting rules do not allow the posting of links to other poker training sites. During my poker journey I've found some useful information at other training sites and wish to discuss that information when I post. Hence the creation of this blog.
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