Chaos is Winning

I have only been making about one blog entry a month.  I should do it more often, but I never know what to say.  Poker is a mess, almost everything in my life is out of control, and there seems to be nothing that I can do about it.

There are a lot of things that are going on that, by themselves, might not be a big deal.  But putting everything together, along with the fact that I have ADD, I'm quickly losing my grip.

I am helping to take care of my mother-in-law, who is 91 and has Alzeiheimer's.  I never hesitated when asked to do it, because she's family, and that's what family does.  My wife can't do it, and her brother can't do it, because they have what non-poker players like to call "real jobs" where they have to be on site during certain hours. What started out as checking on my mother-in-law during the day for a few months turned into living with with her full-time three or four days a week. The care that we thought would be necessary for a few months has turned into 15 months.

On the home front, my wife and I decided to make some sacrifices to get all of our debts paid off.  We were already paying extra on some of our debts, and we paid off and closed a credit card account recently.  A few months ago, we decided to get even more aggressive, squeeze the budget even harder, and add an extra $200 a month to paying down our debt.

Again, that was a good idea and the right thing to do.  But when a teenager ran a red light and totaled my car, we didn't have the cash to replace it with another used car, and we decided years ago that we would never have another car payment.  So, I am now without transportation.

The bottom line is that I don't have the wherewithal (time, money, transportation or control of my schedule) to hold everything together.

When I play live poker (about three times a month) I try to present a conservative image, then I play against type by being loose and agressive at the tables.  I go as far as to keep my hair cut short and shine my shoes before every live tournament.  At least that was the plan.  I played last night, without the haircut, because I didn't have the time or transportation to go to a barber.  Except for when I'm playing a live tournament, my wife has control of the car 90% of the time, because she needs it for work, and I do most of my work at home.  Sometimes I can't get the car for days, and that's what happened this time.

When I do some planning, for poker or anything else, it means nothing, because the things I need to do at home pile up, or I'm so tired from my several days with my mother-in-law that I spend half of my first day at home catching up on my sleep.

It's hard for me to be organized as it is, and it's getting way out of control.  I still haven't switched everything over to the Windows 8 computer.  My wife and I agreed on a day when I would do that (June 1st), and the whole day just got blown away by something else.  It had to be taken care of that day, it was for my wife's work and she's the one with an income, so goodbye Windows 8 day.

Charles E. Hummel wrote a short book entitled Tyranny of the Urgent.  He talks about how many of us allow the urgent to prevent us from doing the important. That's exactly what's happening to me.  I mowed the lawn a few days ago when my wife reminded me that we could get fined if our grass was too long--and boom, the tyranny of the urgent blew away my joke of a schedule once again.  (To be honest, I've been pretty lax in my scheduling lately, as there seems to be no point to it.)

Today we are going to the grocery store and the bank and taking care of some other errands.  I will probably get that haircut, at least two weeks later than I wanted to.  At 5 P.M. I start with my mother-in-law again.  I will be there for three days, home for two, then back for another three.

So tomorrow, and several days after, are blown away.  My poker recordkeeping is a mess.  My planning is a joke.  My records are close to the point where updating and fixing them will become urgent, or I'll never catch up and my income tax records won't pass any type of audit.  I can't plan anything, because I don't know when I will get the car, or when I will have six free hours at home when I can play an online tournament, or when I can block out two hours to watch and study a poker coaching video.  To think that I will really be able to devote a full day to changing everything over to Windows 8 seems a cruel joke.

I wish that I could just say that I will devote several hours to my records on Tuesday, and devote Friday to switching everything to the new Windows 8 computer and external hard drive.  But any plans that I make are a sand castle, just waiting to be knocked down when the tides change.

Worst of all, I'm dealing with this while at the same time dealing with ADD.  One of the things I decided early  in my poker decision-making is that I had to impose order on chaos.  I needed short-term and long term plans.  I needed goals.  I needed the right mix of poker play and study. I can't "wing it."  A couple months ago I developed a written business plan--but I haven't kept it updated as fast as cicumstances have changed--another failure.

Chaos is winning.

I'm winging it most of the time now.  My tendency toward disorganization, instead of being managed by a schedule, is being swamped by chaos and uncertainty.  I need to control this, but I have no control over anything.  I feel like every day, I'm bringing a knife a to a gunfight.