In life, every man needs to choose a path; contrary to the world's complexity there may not be as many paths as you might think.
Sure, you can play piano 150 hours per week and make scratch in NYC borough bars playing for old people...
... or you can milk cows in Florida and shoot baskets in your spare time...
https://www.si.com/vault/1991/01/28/123518/he-throws-free-throws-by-the-score-floridian-ted-st-martin-has-parlayed-an-astonishing-talent-into-a-unique-career
... and there's a plethora of these varietal options in life. But within all that complexity, there's only a few ways to attack life and possibly all three of those potentially successful methods are ensconsed inside a movie called Rounders.
Whatever your skills in life, or interests, or neighborly distractions, one day you shall have to pick an important path which is handily outlined for you in the characters of Rounders:
Are you going to Mike McDermott?
Are you going to Knish?
Or are you going to Worm your way thru life?
It's important to watch this clip, if you're going to read on...
WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!?!
This article has a theme song, put this link in a separate browser window as the background music to play while you read the rest of this:
Let's eliminate the Worm option, as even tho it's an option, we'd hope we're writing this for readers who don't really want to go that route. We could be wrong, this is Steemit of course, where "playing the angles" is practically the most prevalent way of life. But if that's your thing, no need to read this, you're worming your way thru life and that's fine-- hell it PAYS here on Steemit. We're more interested in the Knish vs Mikey route.
Unlike the movie, which obviously makes Mikey the hero and Knish the boring putz, we have more respect for KNISH than to dimiss him with a bit part. Knish is a REAL viable option in life. Play what you know, extract all the juice from the orange you can, make rational riskless decisions and feed your family. How many times have you heard "slow and steady wins the race"? But does it? Does slow and steady win the race? Or does slow and steady just ensure you FINISH the race?
A great humble successful man named Mike Sexton once told us that he learned something while announcing the World Poker Tour. He said (paraphrasing) "I made a LOT of final tables, i did, i play solid perfect poker making rational decisions, and was VERY hard to eliminate from a tournament unless you got very lucky. But i wasn't WINNING tournaments and I wasn't aware WHY until i watched guys like Gus Hansen win more than his probabilistic share. You see, Gus wouldn't make as many final tables as me, but when he DID make the final table he made it as the chip leader or 2nd place. This is a tremendous advantage, and requires a different method of play done throughout the entire length of the tournament leading up to the final table. This method of play bears more risk you are eliminated, but it results in more gold trophies and oversized checks". We learned a GREAT deal from Mike Sexton's honesty about his own poker play. We have no idea where Mike Sexton is now, but in our minds he's a Knish. He always made the smart play, he "stayed in his lane" so well that he achieved great monetary success. So why don't you know Mike Sexton's name as well as you know Atonio Esfandiari or Gus Hansen or Stu Ungar (the greatest poker play ever)? Does it even MATTER that most poker players don't know Mike Sexton's name or not? We're back to the Mikey vs Knish question, which way?
Look, we're not judging here like the movie ending does; we think there's more than one way to skin a cat in life. Knish seems like not only a very viable option, but frankly we think it's the more proven path in real life. Shoot, Worm is a real option in life too, we see it every day, playing the angles, again, just look at Steemit for proof. But what about Mike? Is choosing that path a pipe dream; is it a recipe for misery; is it ever successful? Maybe Sexton and Knish end up on top when all is said and done, and the slow and steady turtle DOES win the race, we all just underestimate how LOOOOOONG the race actually is?
We're not telling you the answer here, your personality and gut and environmental surroundings will probably weigh heavily in your decision. Frankly we don't know the answer, bc one thing we DO know is that Hollywood movies are filled with bullshit, mostly. But this was no high-budget crowd pleaser, this Rounders, so can we take anything from it?
There IS a decision you will have to make in your life and you don't have a lot of time to make that decision bc most of life is living by a code you've set for yourself and you only get one life and the outcomes are over decades typically not months. If you could re-decide your method, your path, your guidance, then hell, wouldn't everyone end up aces in the end? So we ask you...
Are you going to put a move on Chan?