I Built My Life On A House Of Cards

I built my life on a house of cards, even though it took me a long time to realize it. I thought I was sitting with some good cards in hand, but suddenly I lost the game. Those cards were little things I thought I had achieved little by little and with just one damn gust of wind, I lost the game in a split second.

I had the work card, the independence card, the freedom card and the self-confidence card. But a monster called Crisis came and played its own hand, and my house of cards was blown away by a hurricane that destroyed all the floors. It smashed the walls into piles of straw.

And then I realized that I did not find or had earned those cards. They were handed out to me.

When you encounter unexpected circumstances like these,  it seems as if the future, on which you invested all your savings, flows away with the flow. It’s like losing your life playing poker at a casino. Nothing is safe anymore and the world is reduced to nothing more than chance. And then one’s fear materializes.

I play the game in my life with the cards I’ve been given

We often do not realize that we are playing the game of life with the cards we have already received. And that it’s up to us to win the game. The case exposes us to situations that we have not asked for that hurt us as it is something we cannot control.

What can you do when the cards you have received in life do not fall out in your favor? How to win the game of chance? The most important thing is not to lose perspective. One can give up and let oneself be carried away by the sad place, which one is pushed towards by chance. Otherwise, one can fight to win. 

To be able to fight, you need different strategies that can work to your own advantage. That way, when you get some bad cards, you can be helped by these strategies. “Coping strategies” are, according to Lazarus and Folkman, a set of cognitive and behavioral tools that can be used to deal with internal or external demands. The demands that feel too great for one’s own resources.

Win the game with coping strategies

You will encounter many difficult situations in life where you will suffer no matter what happens. But you have to learn to accept them and live with them as just another part of life’s game. One must continue to move forward despite the pain and fear.

Coping strategies help not only with dealing with stress, but also with dealing with the emotions that are related to everyday problems. But often we do not use the right strategies, which is why we can not handle our problems. According to Lazarus and Folkman, there are two types of coping strategies:

• Strategies focused on the problem. These are used when the problem can be handled well. Either by changing the environment in which the problem occurred, or by changing itself. The two main strategies in this type are:
  • : This involves dealing with the problem directly.
  • : This technique is used to find the best way to deal with the problem.
• Strategies focused on the emotions. These are used when nothing can be done directly about the problem because it is something that cannot be changed. Instead, you try to change the emotional weight of the stress you feel. In other words, you change the way you consider or interpret what is happening. These include:
  • : To deny the problem or forget that it exists.
  • : To wait to solve the problem, keep it to yourself.
  • for the problem.
  • : Waiting for it to resolve itself, or even using drugs as a coping strategy.
  • : Asking for help or advice to get the point of view of others.

A special coping strategy is to seek social support, which falls into both categories. It can focus on the problem as well as on the emotions. It can, because it depends on how you use that support and what you want from it.

Be careful! Not all coping strategies can help

Not all of the strategies we have mentioned here are positive or the right choice to solve problems with. The strategies described above are those that the authors considered to be the most common. But distancing and confrontation often do more harm than good. 

On the other hand  , planning, problem solving, and positive re-evaluation are the most useful  when it comes to dealing with one’s problems. Those strategies tend to create very positive results.

So when one’s house of cards collapses like a poorly built castle, use the best coping strategies to solve the problems. If you do not know how to use them, then you should ask for psychological help so you can learn something about them. That way, chance and sadness will not win the game. You decide for yourself how you want to play the game in your own life. The case deals the cards to you, but it is you who chooses which ones you want to play with.