The House's Money

Life is a game of poker. We are dealt some cards, we play the hand as best we can and win or lose based upon our cards and our ability.

Whenever it seems that my card's aren't quite good enough, or my ability is not capable of winning the hand, I try always to remember that even if I lose the hand I am still a winner, as I am playing with the house's money.

Allow me to explain.

We have been dealt far more hands than we can recall. It all started when our very essence was determined. Now, you can believe in reincarnation, divine intervention, Fate or any other method of species selection, but for the sake of our metaphor, you were dealt a hand.The outcome of that hand would determine whether you were dog, a cat, a monkey, anteater, squid, snail or fish, a neutrino or quark, a piece of cosmic dust.....or a human being. The fact that you have a human soul with the ability to love, hate, dream an d strive means you won that all important first hand.

So, it was decided that you were to be human. What happened in the next hand? Well, of the thousands of eggs carried in your mother's ovaries, and the millions of sperm produced by your father, one of each joined at a magical moment and produced an embryo that could live in your mother's womb.

You just collected another sizable pot.

And what about your parents? They just happened to be alive during the 20th century, not during the dark ages, the Mesopotamian era, the Renaissance or even the American Civil War. They were able to bring you into the world during the time of thee greatest advancements in the human race, a time when we have produced the the means to solve most of the problems that have plagued mankind for centuries; a time when we have the opportunity to combine intellectual enlightenment, social awareness and technological prowess to feed, clothe the world population.

Again, you won the pot, and with it a tremendous opportunity and responsibility.

Let's take a moment to count your chips. Somehow, your soul, your being was assigned to the human race for use at the dawn of the 21st century. The fact that you are not part of the miasma of primordial gas means that you have a huge stack of chips on the table. But, let's take a look at the next hand.

You are alive, breathing,able to communicate and have made it to a point where you are aware of some of the hands you are playing. Consider the fact that your parents created an environment that got you in a specific location today. You aren't in Biafra, The Sudan, Cambodia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Nicaragua nor Russia, but are in America, The United States of America, where your freedom, talent, creativity, your ability to live life to the fullest are not stifled or merely tolerated, but are encouraged and celebrated. Consider also that after your mother's egg was fertilized it did, indeed latch onto the uterine wall and you grew.You weren't aborted, you weren't strangled on your umbilical chord, you weren't formed without a brain or heart but, instead, you formed into a living, functional, self-sufficient person. And, you made it through the trauma of birth! No sudden infant death, no plague, no childhood or adolescent maladies that have stopped you from breathing, feeling, communicating......living!

So, here you are, alive at the dawn of the 21st century in the United States of America. You have won almost every hand that you've been dealt; some by luck, some by ability and some inexplicably. You have the opportunity to laugh, cry, create, destroy, love, hate, live, or exist. You've lost some hands that have taken a lot of chips away. You've won some, as well, and added to your pile.

As you recount all your chances, the cosmic possibilities, the odds against making it this far, remember you're playing with the house's money, because you have been playing longer than you can recall, and those chips represent your very good fortune. When you lose a hand, when things seem really bad, look at your chips and you will realize that you may have been set back, but you haven't lost. You have just won less. I doubt, and am sure that deep in your heart you doubt too, that the house will ever get its money back. And, even if it does, that means that you neither won nor lost, but broke even.

That's not too bad, either.