Managing the hand we are dealt

Have you ever played 52-card pickup – the technical, strategic game of skill and chance that reflects the challenges of life and how we manage the hand that we are dealt?

I remember my first game. I was an impressionable 15-year-old negotiating my way through puberty and having a crack at forming my own philosophies on life, the universe and everything. It was fun, scary, exhausting, frustrating, exhilarating and just plain crazy to be a young teenager when the swinging ’60s morphed into the sizzling ’70s.

Nothing I was told by those who knew everything but weren’t doing a great job of anything, or so it seemed to me, made a whole lot of sense. At first, I wondered how on Earth we came as far as we had with the antiquated, bigoted, intolerant attitudes that our parents, teachers and community leaders unfailingly thrust upon us. The world was a mess, no question about it, but questioning how it got that way was taboo.

A brave group of concerned youths quickly learned the power of questioning everything. If we couldn’t get a sensible answer supported with sound evidence, historical data and a forward-thinking plan, it was bunk. So, we asked more questions and surrounded ourselves with mountains of conventional crapola. We became known as non-conformists and, to be honest, I don’t know if that was meant to be a derogatory slur or a complimentary title to wear with pride. Either way, it was a good thing; fun for us at the time and exciting for the future.

Eventually, we realised that building countless slag heaps of unacceptable teachings was only the beginning. There must be some pockets of value hidden among the overburden, so we began looking for rare shiny things that we could weave into our own discoveries to formulate world-changing principles.

We became a fearless breed of (sometimes extremely) open-minded pioneers, not only ready to challenge existing precepts, but courageous enough to offer solutions.

Our existence was the result of the post-World War II population recovery, and as we matured, we earned the more respectable title of ‘baby boomers’.

Even as a hormonally unhinged teenager, I was smart enough to realise the value of pure logic; such were the mathematical permutations of probability essential for gambling survival that my father taught me as soon as I was old enough to shuffle a deck of cards.

One Sunday afternoon, after I had scooped up all the matches on the table thanks to a run of ‘luck’ at poker, one of my friends calmly gathered the cards together and shuffled them intently. He smiled at me and asked if I had ever played 52-card pickup. Naturally I was curious and keen to learn a new game.

“Okay,” he said. “Move to the end of the table next to me.”

I followed his instruction and stood stunned as he unceremoniously dropped the deck of cards onto the floor at my feet.

Smiling at such a good gotcha, I instinctively organised the cards in numerical order, face down and returned the reconstituted deck to the table.

I took a nugget from that illogical, irreverent card dump. However disastrous a situation may appear, we can always find a pattern that will guide us in getting back on top.

Sometimes we just need to let our deck fall. How we pick the cards up will depend on the schema presented. My old man would be horrified, but when you’re all out of aces…

If this article resonates with you, I would love to hear from you.

 Charlie Griffiths is a certified life  coach and Neuro Linguistic  Programming practitioner dedicated to helping fellow professionals refocus after being diagnosed with chronic disease.  Visit charliegriffithscoaching.com.