The Deck Doesn’t Know Your Name

A young fellow posted something today about a situation being unfair.

I don’t remember all the particulars, and they really aren’t important. What caught me was that word.

Unfair.

I left him a comment:

There is nothing in this life that is fair or unfair, brother. You take the cards you are dealt and play them to the best of your ability.

I’ve been thinking about that ever since.

Maybe I was a little too quick with it.

Because people certainly can be unfair.

A boss can treat an employee unfairly. A parent can favor one child over another. Governments, institutions, friends, spouses, and strangers can all behave unfairly. We make agreements with one another. We establish rules. We give our word.

Within those things, fairness matters.

But life itself never made any such agreement with us.

The hurricane doesn’t know whose boat deserves to be spared.

The rain doesn’t know whose roof already leaks.

Illness doesn’t check whether you’ve been eating your vegetables.

And the deck doesn’t know your name.

I’ve played enough poker over the years to know something about bad cards.

Sometimes you sit down and catch everything. You couldn’t miss if you tried. Other nights, you can fold for hours waiting for something worth playing.

That’s poker.

You don’t get angry with the deck.

Well, maybe you do. I’ve certainly muttered a few things at one over the years.

But somewhere beneath all that grumbling, you understand something very important:

The deck doesn’t owe you anything.

And neither does life.

That’s not pessimism. In a strange way, I’ve come to find it enormously freeing.

Because once I quit expecting life to be fair, I can stop spending so much energy keeping score.

Someone else started with more money.

Someone else got the opportunity.

Someone else was born smarter, stronger, healthier, better looking, or into circumstances I could only dream about.

Okay.

What are my cards?

That’s the only hand I can play.

There’s another lesson poker teaches that took me considerably longer to understand.

You can play a hand well and still lose.

That’s important.

You can make the right decision with the information you have. You can calculate the odds correctly. You can exercise patience and discipline and judgment.

And the next card can still beat you.

Life works that way too.

We like to look backward from the result and decide whether the decision was good.

The business failed, therefore starting it must have been a mistake.

The marriage ended, therefore those years were wasted.

The voyage didn’t reach its intended destination, therefore we shouldn’t have left the dock.

I’m not sure that’s true.

Sometimes you make a good decision and get a bad outcome.

Sometimes you make a terrible decision and get lucky.

I’ve done both.

Winning doesn’t always mean you played well.

Losing doesn’t always mean you played poorly.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always liked poker.

The game doesn’t ask whether you deserved better cards. It doesn’t particularly care what happened during the last hand either.

The dealer gathers everything up, shuffles the deck, and deals again.

And there you are.

Another hand in front of you.

Another decision to make.

Another opportunity to play well.

There are certainly things in this world worth changing. When people are treated unjustly, we should speak up. When a system is broken, we should try to repair it. When we can make somebody else’s road a little easier, I believe we ought to.

But that’s different from demanding that life itself explain why things happened the way they did.

I’ve spent enough years on this earth to suspect that explanation isn’t coming.

So these days I try to ask a simpler question.

What are the cards in front of me, and what is the best way I know to play them?

Sometimes they’re good.

Sometimes they’re lousy.

Most of the time they’re somewhere in between.

And eventually, of course, every one of us gets up from the table.

When that time comes, I don’t suppose it’ll matter much whether I won every hand.

I think I’d be satisfied knowing I played the cards I was dealt as well as I knew how.

And maybe enjoyed the company around the table while I was at it.